Dosing K2SO4 (Potassium Sulfate) question

[b4tn]

I am using this thread as a guideline for dosing.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?p=411374&highlight=#411374

I dont have any way of measuring for potassium though so I am unsure how much I should add or what it is even for. Are there any more guidelines or recommendations for dosing potassium?

 

[b4tn]

Woops! I dosed too much phosphate. I need to be more carefull! It brought phosphate up to 2ppm. Should I do a water change or will it be ok?

 

[b4tn]

He he I am full of questions today Today is my first full day of running a bunch of light. It has been on for about 7 hours now. It is 96 watts PC 6700k and 60 Watts NO 6700k or 3.7 watts per gallon for my 42 gallon. I know it is allot of light but I want to see how things turn out dosing and high light.

Anyway. My plants are all bubbling like crazy, Each plant is like an air stone! I was reading about pearling but wasnt expecting to see so many bubbles raising from the plants. Is this normal?

 

[malkore]

pearling should be normal, but if these are streaming a steady stream of very tiny bubbles, that's a sign of trauma to the plant tissues, and it's actually 'bleeding' oxygen through micro-tears.
2ppm of phosphate is fine provided your nitrates are around 15ppm.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_dosage_calc.htm - for dosing potassium.

 

[crazycat]

so if plants are bleeding oxygen through micro tears, how do you stop that from happening????? my plants do this on occasion and i thought it was ok up til now...

 

[b4tn]

I did some pruning last night so that is probably why then,

As for potasium. I have the calculator installed but I still dont know if I should dose it without having a way of getting the levels.

 

[malkore]

I don't know of any experienced plant keeper that dose test for potassium. I should've clarified that.

Just dose 10ppm after a water change, and another 5ppm about 3-4 days later.
Excess potassium doesn't create any kind of algae. The only possible negative effect is that way overdosing potassium will inhibit calcium uptake...mainly a problem if you have really soft water.

You'd have to dose 20ppm several times a week to approach 'overdosed' levels.


Plants get damaged when you prune them, when fish nibble them, or damage them by swimming through them (typically your larger than 3" fish can do this)...or from minor deficiencies that create weak cell walls. Healthy plants only stream when pruned or if a fish has damaged it. Unhealthy plants will get tiny pinholes that stream oxygen. To fix it, test all macros, make sure potassium dosing is adequate...then look at trace dosing (including iron) as a source.

If the plants look great, but stream, its probably the fish causing it, and you'll likely see it in certain plants in the tank...which I'd classifiy as 'delicate' plants.