Elemental iron sulphate

Cory · Dec 6, 2017

I bought some pills to dose my reef to bring down po4. It just says elemental iron sulphate.

How much would 300 mg reduce po4 by? I have appropriately 300 gallons. The pills are 300 mg each.

Im trying to follow glennf method. Dsr reefing. He adds iron citrate but i could only find elemental iron sulphate.

Short story. I was trying to flush my vinegar dosing line and ran it for a minute. I thought it was vinegar but actually was my po4 dosing line! Lol. Just tested po4 and hanna read .97ppm lol. So im going to try and bring it down with iron pills.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 7, 2017

Cory said:
I bought some pills to dose my reef to bring down po4. It just says elemental iron sulphate.

How much would 300 mg reduce po4 by? I have appropriately 200 gallons. The pills are 300 mg each.

Im trying to follow glennf method. Dsr reefing. He adds iron citrate but i could only find elemental iron sulphate.

Short story. I was trying to flush my vinegar dosing line and ran it for a minute. I thought it was vinegar but actually was my po4 dosing line! Lol. Just tested po4 and hanna read .97ppm lol. So im going to try and bring it down with iron pills.

Since not all iron will precipitate as iron phosphate, it's not possible to make a claim about how much does what. It will also bind hydroxide (mostly, I expect) reducing alkalinity.

Cory · Dec 7, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Since not all iron will precipitate as iron phosphate, it's not possible to make a claim about how much does what. It will also bind hydroxide (mostly, I expect) reducing alkalinity.

Ah ok. Yeah i checked my po4 a half hour later and 300mg reduced po4 by .35ppm.

The bottle says contains 60mg of elemental iron. But why is each pill 300 mg?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 7, 2017

Cory said:
Ah ok. Yeah i checked my po4 a half hour later and 300mg reduced po4 by .35ppm.

The bottle says contains 60mg of elemental iron. But why is each pill 300 mg?

The pill is ferrous sulfate (so a lot of sulfate weight), plus things that allow it to be made into a pill.

Here's an example:

Other ingredients: Calcium phosphate, cellulose, croscarmellose sodium, FD&C red #40, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, mineral oil, polyethylene glycol, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid (veg. grade), talc, and titanium dioxide.

Formula: Each tablet contains 200 mg of dried ferrous sulfate USP (65 mg of elemental iron), equivalent to 325 mg of ferrous sulfate USP.

Cory · Dec 7, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The pill is ferrous sulfate (so a lot of sulfate weight), plus things that allow it to be made into a pill.

Here's an example:

Other ingredients: Calcium phosphate, cellulose, croscarmellose sodium, FD&C red #40, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, mineral oil, polyethylene glycol, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid (veg. grade), talc, and titanium dioxide.

Formula: Each tablet contains 200 mg of dried ferrous sulfate USP (65 mg of elemental iron), equivalent to 325 mg of ferrous sulfate USP.

Ah ok. Thats makes sense. Thanks.

Cory · Dec 7, 2017

Heres whats in mine. But it has a red covering that colors the water red. I just rinse it off. Anything i should be concered with dosing this?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 8, 2017

I don't see any obvious concern. Obviously it is adding some phosphate, but that is not really a concern at the likely level in a product whose purpose, in this case, is to reduce phosphate.

Cory · Dec 19, 2017

Why do they say contains 60 mg of elemetal iron istead of 300 mg of iron sulphate? How much iron does this really deliver?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 19, 2017

Cory said:
Why do they say contains 60 mg of elemetal iron istead of 300 mg of iron sulphate? How much iron does this really deliver?

It's so docs and patients can easily compare the amount of iron (and only iron) present in different products. They don't care about sulfate, gluconate, fumarate, or anything else that contributes to weight of the pill.

Cory · Dec 19, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
It's so docs and patients can easily compare the amount of iron (and only iron) present in different products. They don't care about sulfate, gluconate, fumarate, or anything else that contributes to weight of the pill.

I see. So 240 mg of that is sulphate and only 60 mg is iron? They should call that a sulphate supplement then lol. Well some of that are non medicinal ingredients though.