Who doses potassium?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As far as denitrification goes in a reef tank. If I could explain this correctly, war would start in the hobby. Denitrification in a reef tank does not happen, or at least not at the rate people assume. All these things people repeat in the hobby is simply that a "repeat". Wanna see how it works? Take water from your tank that has Nitrates of like 100. Setup 3 tanks: Seal completely tank 1. Create opening of 3% for tank 2 (my tank), and leave tank 3 fully uncovered (most tanks in the hobby). Measure Nitrates after 1 month, 6 months and 12 months. You will be surprised how things actually work. In a sense ocean and reef tanks are simpler than is generally assumed.

FWIW, I make no assumptions about how much denitrification takes place in reef tanks. Only thing I am confident of is that it is variable based on levels of organics and amount of accessible places low in O2.

As to that proposed experiment, I'm not sure I understand it (what is in these tanks?) or if it is something you have actually tried, but it seems to have a problem, IMO. Denitrification requires organic matter to degrade in low oxygen zones. To deplete 100 ppm of nitrate would take a very considerable amount of organic matter (if it was methanol, it would take 52 ppm). Since reef tank water typically has on the order of 1 ppm of total organic carbon, your experiment as I understand it is set up to fail due to lack of sufficient organic carbon.

 

[GARRIGA]

Potassium never depleted in my tank, but I’d recommend potassium chloride (say, food or reagent grade from Amazon) if you determine that you need it.

Wouldn't potassium hydroxide be an option as it will help raise pH as well?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Wouldn't potassium hydroxide be an option as it will help raise pH as well?

Potassium hydroxide can be used in any situation where one uses sodium hydroxide and wants to raise potassium.

Note, however, that if you are adding 2 dKH per day this way, potassium will rise by 28 ppm every day!

 

[GARRIGA]

Potassium hydroxide can be used in any situation where one uses sodium hydroxide and wants to raise potassium.

Note, however, that if you are adding 2 dKH per day this way, potassium will rise by 28 ppm every day!

thx

 

[schabiazabi]

You seem to not be. Your arguments overall do not seem to fit well established science and do not make sense. There are clearly many mechanisms and examples of uptake of elements that vary by organism. if you do not believe that, fine.

I don't believe in "established science". Those people are often wrong. My arguments will probably not make sense if you learned your science "one" way, not the other. There is no magical denitrification in a reef tank, and I speculate same thing is in the ocean. I can show this in an aquarium, but I can't show this in ocean. It's too big. I have tested these things for decades, and I drew my own conclusions. On average everything on the planet uptakes NPK in about the same proportions, and that's how our "fertilizer", "earth", "processes" are build. They are build like this (simple and consistent) so that everything balances out and is liner in order for one system, or one process serve all plants/corals/etc.

Again, if you like to learn from me or disagree, please do the simple "denitrification" test I talked about in the prior post and we can take it from there. Discussing complicated things has no merit if people don't fully understand the denitrification cycle. It's the basis of our existence btw.

 

[rtparty]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don't believe in "established science".

Well, there you go. I think that says enough to just agree to disagree.

 

[rtparty]

I stopped believing in gravity a long time ago but it has such a tight grip I’m not able to let go

 

[herozero]

Well, there you go. I think that says enough to just agree to disagree.

Fixed that for ya.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Well, there you go. I think that says enough to just agree to disagree.

 

[schabiazabi]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
"There certainly is a typical uptake ratio between the various ions (N, P, K, etc.) since many organisms use them in roughly similar proportions (don't confuse that with needing them in the water at those ratios)." - Randy Holmes-Farley - Reef Chemist - May 11, 2017 - Thread 285684 - Post 17

So which one is it? You can't have it both ways. You say in 2017 that they uptake plus minus in similar proportion, which is what I said, and then you go against me when I stated the same thing in a reply to

serwobow​

And yes, intelligent catch on my "tests" due to not enough carbon, which renders denitrification as understood in the hobby as non sense. The entire "denitrification" post Nitrate is simply evaporation. If you close your tank as I do you have almost no evaporation, because why would you leak elements? Open top tanks "denitrificate" 5 times faster than mine, because they simply have to dilute their tanks (ATO), which btw slows down coral growth, because you are leaking elements. Unless you have too many, in which case I can't help you.

Anyway I was interested in the thread, because my new batch of Instant Ocean (big bucket) salt came in mixed with potassium at 280. That won't work. Corals need correct ratio of N P K in the water in order to uptake them. Potassium is an essential nutrient, without K there is no coral growth. It helps with photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, protein parsing, and many others. K is of the 3 main building blocks of everything on the planet.

 

[Koty]

Corals need correct ratio of N P K in the water in order to uptake them. Potassium is an essential nutrient, without K there is no coral growth. It helps with photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, protein parsing, and many others. K is of the 3 main building blocks of everything on the planet.

Seriously? Sounds like a beginning of a new religion. Consider that we have too many of them anyway.
K is used in its ion form, like Sodium, to carry out various functions involving biological membranes (I am trying not to get into details). It is not a building block. Nitrogen and phosphate are incorporated into proteins and lipids, respectively. Both are incorporated into DNA and RNA (more P than N). Corals can live in a wide range of P concentrations from near 0 (in the sea) to a few milligrams per liter in some cases (in ourtanks).
What is protein parsing??????
"K is one of the 3 main building blocks of everything on the planet."
I had better not comment on this. Maybe you should read the first two lines again.

 

[Koty]

I dose potassium as my tank consumes it slowly. I keep it at 400 ppm as accurate as I can.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
"There certainly is a typical uptake ratio between the various ions (N, P, K, etc.) since many organisms use them in roughly similar proportions (don't confuse that with needing them in the water at those ratios)." - Randy Holmes-Farley - Reef Chemist - May 11, 2017 - Thread 285684 - Post 17

So which one is it? You can't have it both ways. You say in 2017 that they uptake plus minus in similar proportion, which is what I said, and then you go against me when I stated the same thing in a reply to

serwobow​

And yes, intelligent catch on my "tests" due to not enough carbon, which renders denitrification as understood in the hobby as non sense. The entire "denitrification" post Nitrate is simply evaporation. If you close your tank as I do you have almost no evaporation, because why would you leak elements? Open top tanks "denitrificate" 5 times faster than mine, because they simply have to dilute their tanks (ATO), which btw slows down coral growth, because you are leaking elements. Unless you have too many, in which case I can't help you.

Anyway I was interested in the thread, because my new batch of Instant Ocean (big bucket) salt came in mixed with potassium at 280. That won't work. Corals need correct ratio of N P K in the water in order to uptake them. Potassium is an essential nutrient, without K there is no coral growth. It helps with photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, protein parsing, and many others. K is of the 3 main building blocks of everything on the planet.

Yes, the world is both ways and what I said is exactly right. In fact, nearly everything that is “known” about the chemistry of reefing is a simplification that has exceptions.


Note the EXACT wording I used:

"There certainly is a typical uptake ratio between the various ions (N, P, K, etc.) since many organisms use them in roughly similar proportions (don't confuse that with needing them in the water at those ratios)."


It is certainly true that many organisms do what I said. There are also some organisms that do not. Those that do not are what can cause very different consumption of N, P, and K in a reef tank. There are also nonbiological ways these are removed from a reef tank, so even in a world where every organism used the same ratio, the consumption ratio in a reef tank would not match.

 

[schabiazabi]

@Koty You insulted me about some new religion, and you wrote a lot, but you failed to prove why Potassium is NOT a building block. I will show you below why it is a building block in simple terms so everyone can understand.

There are essential building blocks and there are micro nutrients (beneficial elements) that plants and corals in water and above water need in order to survive. In "science" in order for an element to be regarded as essential 3 things must happen: plant/coral CAN NOT complete it's life cycle without THAT element, other elements CAN NOT be a substitute, element directly helps coral/plant in it's nutrition.

Now, remove Potassium in your reef tank all the way to 0 and let us know about that NEW RELIGION.
This is my final post, I know everything I needed to know.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Koty You insulted me about some new religion, and you wrote a lot, but you failed to prove why Potassium is NOT a building block. I will show you below why it is a building block in simple terms so everyone can understand.

There are essential building blocks and there are micro nutrients (beneficial elements) that plants and corals in water and above water need in order to survive. In "science" in order for an element to be regarded as essential 3 things must happen: plant/coral CAN NOT complete it's life cycle without THAT element, other elements CAN NOT be a substitute, element directly helps coral/plant in it's nutrition.

Now, remove Potassium in your reef tank all the way to 0 and let us know about that NEW RELIGION.
This is my final post, I know everything I needed to know.

There is no doubt that potassium is needed by organisms. You guys are debating the semantics of what a building block is. That doesn’t seem especially useful to argue about. You are right that organisms need it, and Koty is correct that the normal definition of a building block would not normally include ions that are not attached to something else.

 

[Koty]

Sorry for the insult, but this forum at least tried to rely on science and members' joined experiences. Your replies, however, are nothing of these two. Moreover, they are a kind of insult and are not short of a waste of time to the experts running this forum. My two cents to you is to not preach to experts. It's almost funny but in a bad way.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

 

[herozero]

Ignore functionality: it’s fantastic!