Help With Frogbit

[Abbs12]

After finding out that our tap has naturally higher nitrates I bought some frogbit to try and combat it. I introduced it to our tank last Thursday and I have already seen new growth but the new leaves are a very light yellow color. I read that it could be an iron deficiency in our water. How do I supplement for that?

Our tank is currently cycling with a Betta in it and we are in the nitrite phase (it usually only gets to about .25 ppm before I do our WCs). We have the fluval spec v and I have a sponge over the output so there is almost no surface movement. I do use stock lighting and leave our lights on for about 6 hours a day. We are currently battling a green/brown hair algae so we have cut back.

Most recent water parameters are as follows:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40-80ppm (hard to tell the difference)
PH - 7.4

I currently don't dose our tank with anything except for seachem prime and stability during WCs. I am also wanting to add Anubias Nana and java fern but I would like to get this figured out first. We have a couple of marimo moss balls that look even better than when I purchased them.

 

[Aquaphobia]

You can buy iron fertilizer for tanks. I used to use a micronutrient plus iron liquid fertilizer made by Nutrafin that worked really well. Since the frogbit is new though it could just be adjusting to the new lighting in your tank.

 

[Jocelyn Adelman]

Agree that the yellowing can be from adjusting to a new environment, esp a cycling tank...
Light yellow can be from a number of things, not just iron. You can buy liquid iron supplements, however I would recommend getting flourish comprehensive, especially if you plant to get other plants. By getting the comprehensive you will be adding iron, other trace elements, and a small amount of potassium. The levels of nitrogen and phosphorus are negligible.
Often by dosing too much of one single fert, without balancing the rest, you can encourage algae growth even more.

For cycling with the frogbit, I would say you can even keep your lights on for about 4 hrs right now, two in the am, two in the pm should be enough for the frogbit.... ideally as the algae subsides and the tank cycles you can move to a solid block of six hrs and slowly increase the amount of time from there.

 

[Abbs12]

Okay great! Thank you both so much! I will pick up some flourish comprehensive today!