Too Much Iron Dosing

[Rlon35]

Hey ya'll,

My wife recently took it upon herself to mix excel, iron, and potassium in the flourish iron container, as the excel and potassium were running low . I have been dosing this mixture every day to every other day, as I am low on supplements and short on cash at present. Well, there is a spot algae bloom on my slower growing plants (anubias and onions). I am out of excel, aside from the amount in this mixture, so I am just snapping off the affected anubia leaves and cutting down the onions until I can make my next order for suppplies. What is the relationship of excessive iron dosing to algae blooms? What types of algaes could it facilitate? I ask this question because some people seem to suggest that iron can lead to beard algae outbreaks...just curious if there is any truth to that.

On another note, my 92 gallon corner is now stocked with clown loaches, SAEs, corys, and kribs, with borelli apistos, and eventually snails and discus, on the way. Swords, red mangroves, driftwood with anubias and java fern lace, dwarf sag, giant vals, and wisteria constitute my plant life as of now. I am thinking of adding congo ferns and floating plants as my final pieces. Going to order a fluval fx5 next pay check, along with a boatload of excel .

 

[gzylo]

discus and kribs - you need to think about it again

 

[aaronnorth]

iron is said to trigger hair algae as when tested, the follicles contained high percentages of iron. However, upon further testing, it was shown iron did not trigger hair algae, and in fact, is much like diatoms where silica is often blamed.
Another factor causes the algae, and then hair algae feeds off the iron, and diatoms feed of the silica.

 

[SuperColey1]

I don't think Iron is going to have too much effect. From what I have read on the more respected forums, iron only remains in usable for form for a very short time. Soaked up by plants as soon as they can get it etc. and turns to unusable form very quickly.

If you were to have too much iron you could easily see that when changing your filter there would be a build up of reddish colouring from the iron in there.

I overdose the traces in my tank and see no problems.

AC