Potassium, How Important is it?

S

Steven

I have been using the AquariumWatertesting.com for the past three months.

I just received my third test result and my Potassium level is low. The range for potassium is 350-450 mg/l. When I looked at the first two tests I noticed that my Potassium levels have been declining.

I submit the tests at the first of the month so there is essentially 4 weeks between the tests. The first test was submitted in November.

Potassium (350-450) 360 347 285
Calcium (350-450) 286 302 384

Over this time the only changes to the aquarium is to add turbo calcium to increase my calcium and I switched from the standard Tropic Marin salt to Tropic Marin Pro-Reef.

Finally, the only reason I'm asking about the potassium is that my two leather corals over the past month hardly extend their polyps. I'm curious if the low potassium could be a factor.

Thanks for any input you may have. Below are the complete test results for the past 3 months from AWT.


Ammonia 0.0004 0.01 0.007
Nitrite 0.0005 0.007 0.004
Nitrate 0.4 0.3 0.5
Phosphate 0.12 0.07 0.01
Silica 1.4 0.4 0.6
Potassium 360 347 285
Calcium 286 302 384
Boron 2.3 4 4.2
Molybdenum 0.2 0.1 0.2
Strontium 7.8 11.2 10.2
Magnesium 1307 1137 1306
Iodine 0.03 0.01 0.05
Copper 0.01 0.03 0.03
Alkalinity 3.74 3.39 3.52
 
If I remember right... When I had my soft coral tank I had issues with leather polyps not extending when my Alk and Calcium were low.

I'm still wondering why your calcium is so low. Don't you have a reactor?
 
Steven,

Here is a thread that Randy Farley discussed it, along with others, in great detail. It might help you out some.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=957770&highlight=Potassium
 
Bill,

My calcium right now is 384 which I'm not too worried about. I do have a calcium reactor. I think I just needed to get my calcium levels up with the turbo calcium and then the reactor will maintain the levels. I have been raising the calcium slowly by adding the turbo calcium every couple of days.

DaveJ,

Thanks for the finding the link. I'm not sure if I have time to go through 12 pages of stuff. I will skim it when I can.
 
@Steven wrote:
Bill said:
I'll give you the cliff notes version... no one knows for sure the effects or impact of lower than NSW level of potassium. Some don't worry about it, others will dose a bit of Potassium Chloride to raise it up to 400ppm just to be on the safe side.

As far as what it does... the best info I could find on it was that its used in cell function and the like.... just another mineral that is needed to function properly. It also is utilized by algae....
Click to expand...
 
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