raising potassium

[Flakes]

I have been dosing the maximum daily dose recomended by Brightwell for 4 days now with no increase in potassium level.I assume I have prepared the stock solution correctly.Im testing with Salifert and is at 275ppm,the same as 4 days ago.Can I add more?Why does the manufacturer recommend such a low daily dose?

 

[reeftivo]

Why are you worried about potassium?
Are you running zeovit?

 

[Ruffoj926]

Simple solution: don't worry about potassium in reef tanks.

 

[gonpostal]

+3. I have never tested for potassium, nor do I ever plan on it.

 

[Flakes]

im running zeolites.

 

[reeftivo]

im running zeolites.

How do your animals look?
Do the corals look washed out?

Its a little debated that ULNS systems using the zeolites will lower potassium levels. For me the test kits were junk and can lead to overdosing since they are difficult to read. I wouldn't worry too much about potassium unless the corals look washed out, especially plating montipora. I've used k balance from kz with good success. The best indicator for me is when the montipora started losing color, I would dose 1ml of the k balance daily until the colors came back then I would stop dosing.

What livestock do you keep?

 

[Bilk]

How do your animals look?
Do the corals look washed out?

Its a little debated that ULNS systems using the zeolites will lower potassium levels. For me the test kits were junk and can lead to overdosing since they are difficult to read. I wouldn't worry too much about potassium unless the corals look washed out, especially plating montipora. I've used k balance from kz with good success. The best indicator for me is when the montipora started losing color, I would dose 1ml of the k balance daily until the colors came back then I would stop dosing.

What livestock do you keep?

I believe corals utilize potassium in some way. The concentration of potassium is just a bit less than that of calcium in natural seawater. I don't believe it's the zeolites that deplete potassium.

AFAIK they provide a surface outside of the tank for bacteria to grow. Then that bacteria is released into the water column when agitated, to feed the corals. Then the skimmer works at removing what the corals don't use. I believe that's how the system is supposed to work.

I've measured potassium levels in my tank and witness it depleting. I think most living organisms utilize potassium in some way. This is something to look at in terms of what corals utilize for their metabolism.

How Corals Feed

Other things in the system will utilize potassium as well. Alga is one. Potassium at a certain level may be helpful in managing algae according to this article.

Algae: limiting nutrients

Not being argumentative, but I always find it curious when I read NSW levels in a reef tank are somehow not what we're supposed to strive for.

 

[disc1]

Most animals do use potassium but they do not consume it as such. I mean they don't take it away and it is gone. For instance your body uses potassium. You eat some you pee some out. But it is never being used up, only excreted. Potassium doesn't get locked up into anything like calcium and alkalinity do when building skeleton. So in the end the amount of soluble potassium in the system should remain constant unless you are actively removing it.

The kinds of things that biological systems use potassium for you just keep using the same potassium over and over.

 

[tmz]

I think natural levels are fine. I think most tanks have them though.
I thought I would need to up potassium with organic carbon dosing and extra bacterial export.occuring for over 4 years
Trouble is reliable measures in the kits out there were hard to come by. The Red Sea at least gave me something I could read. Surprisingly, K is at about 400ppm according to the tests.So, the potassium chloride I bught from teh on line health food store sits on the shelf.
Point is asssuming you need K just because you maitain a probiotic system is not a valid assumption. Test it before dosing if you can find a way to do that with some degree of confidence in the measure.

 

[Bilk]

Most animals do use potassium but they do not consume it as such. I mean they don't take it away and it is gone. For instance your body uses potassium. You eat some you pee some out. But it is never being used up, only excreted. Potassium doesn't get locked up into anything like calcium and alkalinity do when building skeleton. So in the end the amount of soluble potassium in the system should remain constant unless you are actively removing it.

The kinds of things that biological systems use potassium for you just keep using the same potassium over and over.

So you're saying none is assimilated into cell structure? I guess I have more research to do unless you can point me to something you drew your conclusion from.

 

[MHG]

I went through almost a full bottle of the brightwell before it was up enough to measure. For the record my purple bonsai looked incredible and all my corals will blue tips looked crazy. However the test kits I have used (red sea and salifert) both suck. There is way too much interpretation on the color change and thus I stopped dosing. My bonsai losed 90 percent of its color but I am afraid of overdose so I dose only about twice a month now. I am looking to try a better kit.


I am all for dosing based on how the corals look but I can not find much info on what
Constitutes potassium over dose and what the symptoms are. And as you know things go bad fast and take months to reverse so I am skittish.

 

[disc1]

So you're saying none is assimilated into cell structure? I guess I have more research to do unless you can point me to something you drew your conclusion from.

OK. I'll bite. What part of the cell structure sequesters potassium? And then needs a constant source? Where is the potassium from the cell going away to if not back into the water? You tell me.

 

[Bilk]

Some searching produced these. I don't have a subscription to these sites, but maybe someone with academic credentials or access to an academic library can obtain them.

Potassium and other minor elements in Porites corals: implications for skeletal geochemistry and paleoenvironmental reconstruction


Incorporation of Potassium in Scleractinian Coral Aragonite: Preliminary X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy


And this from Wiki:

Potassium is an essential mineral macronutrient and is the main intracellular ion for all types of cells. It is important in maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance in the bodies of humans and animals.

Potassium ion is necessary for the function of all living cells, and is thus present in all plant and animal tissues. It is found in especially high concentrations within plant cells, and in a mixed diet, it is most highly concentrated in fruits. The high concentration of potassium in plants, associated with comparatively very low amounts of sodium there, historically resulted in potassium first being isolated from the ashes of plants (potash), which in turn gave the element its modern name. The high concentration of potassium in plants means that heavy crop production rapidly depletes soils of potassium, and agricultural fertilizers consume 93% of the potassium chemical production of the modern world economy.

The functions of potassium and sodium in living organisms are quite different. Animals, in particular, employ sodium and potassium differentially to generate electrical potentials in animal cells, especially in nervous tissue. Potassium depletion in animals, including humans, results in various neurological dysfunctions.

Function in animals

Potassium is the major cation (positive ion) inside animal cells, while sodium is the major cation outside animal cells. The concentration differences of these charged particles causes a difference in electric potential between the inside and outside of cells, known as the membrane potential. The balance between potassium and sodium is maintained by ion transporters in the cell membrane. All potassium ion channels are tetramers with several conserved secondary structural elements. The most recently resolved potassium ion channel is KirBac3.1, which gives a total of five potassium ion channels (KcsA, KirBac1.1, KirBac3.1, KvAP, MthK) with a determined structure.[1] All five are from prokaryotic species. The cell membrane potential created by potassium and sodium ions allows the cell to generate an action potential"”a "spike" of electrical discharge. The ability of cells to produce electrical discharge is critical for body functions such as neurotransmission, muscle contraction, and heart function.[1]

The Wiki article suggests that if it's found within the cells, then it's being up-taken from some source. Guess it could be from ingesting other living organisms, but I would think corals would more easily obtain it from the water column.

Well I'm still learning

 

[Flakes]

How do your animals look?
Do the corals look washed out?

Its a little debated that ULNS systems using the zeolites will lower potassium levels. For me the test kits were junk and can lead to overdosing since they are difficult to read. I wouldn't worry too much about potassium unless the corals look washed out, especially plating montipora. I've used k balance from kz with good success. The best indicator for me is when the montipora started losing color, I would dose 1ml of the k balance daily until the colors came back then I would stop dosing.

What livestock do you keep?

Im following brightwell's neo zeo method.The mistake I've done was running a higher flow throught the reactor than what was recommended.When I added some more zeolites after a week all montiporas and acroporas went pale almost white overnight.no polyp extension.I removed some of the zeolites and started feeding more,now they are almost back to normal.What do you think,is it time to add some more zeolites and follow the method?

The new salifert kit im using has a dramatic color change which is very easy to read.Do you think it can be trusted?

 

[Bilk]

I went through almost a full bottle of the brightwell before it was up enough to measure. For the record my purple bonsai looked incredible and all my corals will blue tips looked crazy. However the test kits I have used (red sea and salifert) both suck. There is way too much interpretation on the color change and thus I stopped dosing. My bonsai losed 90 percent of its color but I am afraid of overdose so I dose only about twice a month now. I am looking to try a better kit.


I am all for dosing based on how the corals look but I can not find much info on what
Constitutes potassium over dose and what the symptoms are. And as you know things go bad fast and take months to reverse so I am skittish.

I'm not a chemist or biologist, but I'm also not sure it's toxic at elevated levels. I think corals use what they need and the rest just remains free within the solution. The link I provided above claims it can be a limiting factor for algae as it somehow competes with NO3 and PO4.

I'm trying to get a better understanding of how potassium plays into the scheme of things. I know most ignore it, but I think the more successful systems account for it. JMO of course

 

[Bilk]

OK. I'll bite. What part of the cell structure sequesters potassium? And then needs a constant source? Where is the potassium from the cell going away to if not back into the water? You tell me.

Again, not a chemist or biologist, but I think "excess" potassium is excreted in urine. The host utilizes what it needs to build cell structure and disposes of the rest. So if a coral is growing, it needs potassium in order to grow. If it using potassium it needs to be replenished unless water changes are enough to keep it at level. I think that's how it may work.

I tried Zeovit and found the required dosing regimen wasn't for me. However I want to take some of what they profess to leading to a healthy system and incorporate it in what I'm doing. Potassium seems to be an important part of the Zeovit system. Many of the other products are replicated in other ways using traditional methods.

 

[disc1]

Some searching produced these. I don't have a subscription to these sites, but maybe someone with academic credentials or access to an academic library can obtain them.

Potassium and other minor elements in Porites corals: implications for skeletal geochemistry and paleoenvironmental reconstruction


Incorporation of Potassium in Scleractinian Coral Aragonite: Preliminary X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy


And this from Wiki:



The Wiki article suggests that if it's found within the cells, then it's being up-taken from some source. Guess it could be from ingesting other living organisms, but I would think corals would more easily obtain it from the water column.

Well I'm still learning

Yes it is required by the cell. Yes that is exactly what I said. I also said it isn't used up. You build up a certain concentration in the cell and then uptake is balanced by excretion. Nothing in what you've posted here suggests that potassium is sequestered and used up.

Potassium is required for maintaining membrane potential. In that function it simply moves back and forth across the cell membrane. So sequestration there.

Potassium is used in a wide variety of enzymatic reactions. But as soon as the reaction is over the potassium is released.

I still see nothing that implies that anything is creating insoluble potassium. I don't think that there are any biologically relevant anions that form insoluble complexes with potassium.

At no point is anything done with it where it is gone and never used again. Nothing in this link implies any differently. It does talk about potassium being depleted in agricultural soils, but unless you are pulling your corals out of the tank (and removing with them any potassium in their cells) to eat them or whatever then that isn't the same thing.

So the only real route for K to be depleted in our tanks is if we are removing something from the tank which contains it. Maybe when we skim out bacteria. But it is very different from say calcium which is constantly being turned into calcium carbonate skeleton and is removed from the water and is no longer available.

 

[Bilk]

Yes it is required by the cell. Yes that is exactly what I said. I also said it isn't used up. You build up a certain concentration in the cell and then uptake is balanced by excretion. Nothing in what you've posted here suggests that potassium is sequestered and used up.

Potassium is required for maintaining membrane potential. In that function it simply moves back and forth across the cell membrane. So sequestration there.

Potassium is used in a wide variety of enzymatic reactions. But as soon as the reaction is over the potassium is released.

I still see nothing that implies that anything is creating insoluble potassium. I don't think that there are any biologically relevant anions that form insoluble complexes with potassium.

At no point is anything done with it where it is gone and never used again. Nothing in this link implies any differently. It does talk about potassium being depleted in agricultural soils, but unless you are pulling your corals out of the tank (and removing with them any potassium in their cells) to eat them or whatever then that isn't the same thing.

So the only real route for K to be depleted in our tanks is if we are removing something from the tank which contains it. Maybe when we skim out bacteria. But it is very different from say calcium which is constantly being turned into calcium carbonate skeleton and is removed from the water and is no longer available.

Trying to understand this better, If a coral grows, doesn't it's requirement for potassium grow as well? The links I post do suggest it is sequestered within the cells and also within the calcareous structure. The NASA link directly implies that.

I guess water changes may be enough to maintain levels, but in the past, when not replenishing potassium and only relying on water changes, I did see it depleting.

Alga, bacteria and other organisms all utilize it so that can account for it's depletion, but then they are exported and the concentration of potassium lessens as they are exported. Corals may need a certain level of concentration in the water column in order to utilize it. Below a certain concentration, maybe they cannot?

 

[disc1]

Trying to understand this better, If a coral grows, doesn't it's requirement for potassium grow as well? The links I post do suggest it is sequestered within the cells

How about this comparison. Water is constantly needed in the cell right? Yet the amount of water in your aquarium isn't depleted by the cells using it. Every living cell in there contains water. But we don't have to keep replacing the water that the corals "used up". There is a difference between having some of something inside a cell and taking it permanently away where it will never be seen again.

and also within the calcareous structure. The NASA link directly implies that.

Can't get into the full article this morning, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that the concentration of potassium in skeleton is very very very very small just given the methods they used to detect it.

I guess water changes may be enough to maintain levels, but in the past, when not replenishing potassium and only relying on water changes, I did see it depleting.

Not saying it isn't depleted in your case. Only that it isn't going away anywhere in the cells of the animals you keep. It must be being exported somewhere.

Alga, bacteria and other organisms all utilize it so that can account for it's depletion, but then they are exported and the concentration of potassium lessens as they are exported. Corals may need a certain level of concentration in the water column in order to utilize it. Below a certain concentration, maybe they cannot?

Right, export is where it is being removed.

 

[FlyinByan]

I'm not a big fan of brightwell. I tried their liquid reef but it did nothing for Ca.