Mixing Manganese and Iron in same solution

[Ralph823]

Hi Randy, hope you are having a good Holiday season,

just wanted to run this by you and see what your thoughts are, I am currently using your DIY Iron and Manganese supplements and dosing by hand but I do have an auto doser with one dosing pump not being used, since I am working on automating my tank as much as possible I was wondering if there is anything wrong with mixing the two solutions and dosing them from the same pump or if there is any DIY trace recipes that you have where both elements are included in the same supplement?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Which exact recipes? I intend to mix ferrous gluconate and manganese gluconate, but have not yet tried it.

 

[Ralph823]

I use your recipe with manganese Gluconate and fergon iron tablets

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I use your recipe with manganese Gluconate and fergon iron tablets

I expect that those can be mixed.

 

[Ralph823]

perfect thank you

 

[Ralph823]

Hi Randy, happy new year,

just wanted to clarify something on your recipe, If I am making 2 liters of the solution with manganese Gluconate and fergon iron tablets this would mean i should add 74-75 tablets (give or take) to the 2000 ML RO/DI water since each tablet is 27 MG of iron Gluconate?

also what would the shelf life be on such a large solution? should I make 1 Liter instead?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi Randy, happy new year,

just wanted to clarify something on your recipe, If I am making 2 liters of the solution with manganese Gluconate and fergon iron tablets this would mean i should add 74-75 tablets (give or take) to the 2000 ML RO/DI water since each tablet is 27 MG of iron Gluconate?

also what would the shelf life be on such a large solution? should I make 1 Liter instead?

Why do you want to make so much all at once?

With the tablets, I made up one tablets worth at a time.

 

[Ralph823]

Why do you want to make so much all at once?

With the tablets, I made up one tablets worth at a time.

just so I can set and forget it on the auto doser

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The thing that could possibly happen over time is oxidation and precipitation of iron oxide, or maybe even bacterial growth.

Just watch for those.

 

[Ralph823]

okay so I will continue to dose the Iron by hand and auto dose the Manganese just seems safer

 

[Ashish Patel]

okay so I will continue to dose the Iron by hand and auto dose the Manganese just seems safer

I just made my own Iron supplement. replacing Red sea Color C but not until I figure out what the other minor elements where in Color C. I believe Manganese is also in that. Where did you get the manganese from? If you could share a link that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I just made my own Iron supplement. replacing Red sea Color C but not until I figure out what the other minor elements where in Color C. I believe Manganese is also in that. Where did you get the manganese from? If you could share a link that would be greatly appreciated.

Manganese is readily available from Amazon in several forms. There are several recipes in this thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-chemistry-archive.987116/

 

[Ashish Patel]

Manganese is readily available from Amazon in several forms. There are several recipes in this thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-chemistry-archive.987116/

Thanks Randy, I will take a look at the manganese recipes.

Another issues I am trying to figure out that I could use your help!

So I got the Iron tablets you send me a link for and followed your instructions (27 MG Iron tablet mixed with 27 ML of RO water). For at least a year I have been dosing 20ML of Redsea Color C weekly. Below are the instructions for Red Sea

To use Red Sea Trace Colors C (Iron), typically add 1 milliliter of the solution per 25 gallons (100 liters) of tank water to raise the iron level by approximately 0.02ppm,

How many ML of this DIY iron solution would compare to 20ML of Red sea product. Last week I dosed 15ML of this DIY solution and this week I dosed 10ML. I have 460 gallon of water volume.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There's no reason to match anyone else's concentrations as reef tanks thrive on an incredibly wide range of iron, but I'll work through it anyway.

The DIY Fergon recipe is 1 mg/mL iron.

From the text your wrote about the Red Sea product, which I did not verify, it is determined as follows:

0.02 ppm = 0.02 mg/L = 2 mg/100 L

If adding 1 mL gives that boost, then that one mL contains 2 mg, so the concentration of the Red Sea supplement is 2 mg/mL.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Thanks Randy, This is helpful

This let's me know I was dosing 40mg of Red Sea Iron/weekly. Now I know I can dose 40 ml of the diy iron solution per week, which should give me a 40mg boost.

I feel my tank probably could use more per week since I was dosing conservatively

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing. :)