Christian_rubilar

I was re reading Sorin last night. The problem with potassium sulphate is that when the sulphate is oxidized, it becomes sulfuric acid. In low ppms it allow the bloom of one algae I identified in the MCI, in a little bigger amount, you know.

Regards

Christian_rubilar

What kind of k deficiency you see?
Do you have hard or soft water?

Regards

rjfurbank

Davemonkey--how much GSA did you have when you arrived at your requirement of 3/4 tsp? Was it a lot or just a few spots?

I am on day 5 of the KNO3 protocol and some of my plants are starting to suffer as well (some holes and off-color leaves on my red lotus and blackening tips on my Heteranthera zosterifolia).

davemonkey

Christian, what I'm seeing as Potassium defficiency (and I may be wrong, I just don't know what else it would be) is small soft spots developing in the lower leaves of my stem plants and throughout my epiphytes that do not have roots in the substrate (anubias and java fern). These spots gradually get bigger (almost like a fungal attack, but with a circular pattern rather than irregular shapes).

When it appeared on my epiphytes I thought first it might be micro defficiency since I have not dosed any micros in a couple months (my soil underlayer started releasing nutrients and every time I dosed micros I got very bad Green Water and GDA outbreaks). Really, I think I need to remove all my substrate and start over without the soil.

Roy (and Christian), maybe I misunderstood. I dosed KNO3 until I got Green DUST Algae appearing on the glass rather than Green Spot Algae. Coincidentally, I did get 1 or 2 new spots of GSA about the same time. Should I re-do?

-Dave

bosmahe1

Christian,

I think I will take your advise and not worry about magnesium/calcium so much. I have stopped adding k2hpo4 and reduced csm+b supplimentation to .134 grams or .156 ml per week (at water change time) giving me .05 ppm of fe per week. I don't know how much FE is in the tap water so I'll see what happens.

I have tested the presence of phosphate even without adding k2hpo4 so I can eliminate adding phosphate maybe permanently. If I can reduce cleaning GDA to once a week I will be happy. Cleaning GDA is still easier than cleaning GSA in my opinion.

Thanks for your help.

Henry

Newt

You dose KNO3 until you only have Green Spot algae. When I did this I kept my PO4 to 0.05ppm and have stopped dosing Potassium Sulphate as KNO3 has potassium in it. My potassium is now running between 10 and 15 ppm using a LaMotte test kit.

Once you have only GSA you dose KH2PO4 until that disappears.

The idea of this is to find the right amounts/balance of ferts so you dont have to overdose and do big water changes as with EI. Its is more of a type of PPS dosing IMO - at least thats how I'm approaching it.

The GSA I got on the front and side glass was very small compared to the GSA on the back of the tank. I cant belive the difference in the appearance of my plants.

Christian_rubilar

When the heteranthera zosterifolia gets black this is because a deficiency of Kno3.

About the lotus, what kind of sustrate do you use?

Regards

bosmahe1

MCI does make sense in my opinion, finding a balance. Since I used to add 2 ppm k2hp04, 5-10 ppm Kno3 and 10-15 ppm k2SO4 and doing 30 % water changes, I was probably in excess. Adding k2so4 was the first thing I stopped, knowing that I was getting potassium from kno3 already. I will have to use patience until I find that balance.

rjfurbank

Eco Complete.

goldfishes

Looks like I need to get a calcium test kit.