[APD] RE: K+/Ca

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

>I know there are to many variables, but I think is quite easy, at least on
>my case. My water is hard about 15 Gh, sure is not a measure of Ca, but  I
>will have so bad  luck all these hardness is produced by Mg?. Why These
>retorted grows remits only stopping K dossing?.

Well I do NOT see this, the research also supports my assertion that it is
not the case when the Ca levels are high.
I kept some 200plus species of plants at a GH of 9. 40+ppm of K+.
Mostly I stick with 20-30ppm K. I guess it's more in the 10-20ppm range
these days based off of my advice to folks here and elsewhere. My advice is
based off of enough to make sure you have enough and don't run out
but.........not waste all your fert's just for fun either. 

But even then, I did not see it. So if it's true, and I know for my case it
certainly was, why don't my plants exhibit this?

Let me tell everyone, if I did have this type of problem with distortion,
I'd be worried and try to figure out what was causing it. But I simply have
never had this occur.
I know what I am adding to the tank, Ca and K+ are both there in the ranges
folks are claiming they have distorted growth then claiming high K+ is the
issue.

My present tap water is soft but so where many of the client's tanks I
worked on. We never noticed much there.
Folks with the SFbaaps group often used K+ liberally, and SeaChem's
Equilibrium which is also loaded with K+ for their GH so the Ca were _still
low_ and the K+ pretty high. 
 
>I dont want to polemize, Tom, but my only variable where always K. I,m not
>telling thes effects are "because" K block Ca uptake.

Well, something else is going on I think.
I do not see it. Never have and if it existed, by golly I would have seen
it a long time ago.

I am asking myself why have I not see it?

I just don't buy the magic hobgoblin theory,
There's a reason for it. 

I went wild with K+, any problem in the past, I saw I added more K+.
It never hurt any plants I raised including Ammania and Nesaea with fast
healthy growth, great coloration etc. 
Certainly none of the common vals/swords had issues.

>Other parameters? OK lets go to make one Hypothesis but ¿Which other?¿Where
>do you thing will be the explanation?

>I want to say I have no problems, when "I" have distorted growings, I
reduce
>my K dose and thats all, everythink goes fine but I would like to know why

Well sometimes figuring out everything you actually __can test for__ is a
better/only method you have.
Too many folks assume that they are infallable, their nutrients/CO2 are
perfect.
I know better, with myself included. 
 
It never hurts to do a large 50% or larger water change, dose the nutrients
back afterwards, check the CO2 flow rate, pH/KH, am/pm levels of CO2, the
CO2 line for leaks, holes, good mixing in the tank, filter cleaning, Ca/Mg
GH levels etc.

Add enough of everything to make sure nothing is going to run out for a few
days. 

I go through all that and somehow my plants do not have any distorted
growth. 
But you can account for K+, NO3, PO4, Ca/Mg, CO2, DOC levels, traces, light.

If something is pretty significant such as the distortion, often you will
see a dramatic response.
So where is mine?
I haver these same plants, I have higher K+, yet I'm missing the distorted
growth.

I do KNOW this high K+ is not the reason for these plants even with the
salinity issues since I've had the same plants at higher and lower levels
of Ca and high levels of K+. I would not miss the distorted growth and that
would extremely unacceptable with me.

But I'm still looking into it with the research. Not much to say at the
moment. But a few of my friends deal with salinity issues and other
researchers doing work on agriculture crops but I do not know of anyone
working on high K+/Ca issues with aquatic submersed plants. 
I'm afraid we might need such a specific study to get to the bottom of it.  

But most folks are saying things cleared up when they reduced the K+, so we
should go with that for now since it's an issue of better growth for folks. 

MOST folks are unwilling to stunt their plants or screw with things like
adding NH4, PO4 at high levels etc, add algae species to their tanks to see
how things progress. They want to solve the problem but if we don't know
what the problem is and try to go about it without worry about the look of
the tank, we really have trouble learning much.

It's that type of experiementing that got the CO2 up, the K+ being added,
the PO4 being added, KNO3, No RO water etc.

I have pretty soft water now, Ca++ is about 30ppm, Mg++ about 10ppm. GH is
about 105ppm and the KH is about 50ppm. So this is pretty soft, GH about 5
and the KH about 3.

Now adding K2SO4 should cause the stunting according to many folks.
We shall see. Ammannia is a fast growing plant that is sensitive to to leaf
curling. So I have some of this right now and will give it a critical try
to see if this low Ca/High K+ is true. I do not have a problem with it now.
So if it's true, adding more K+ should show this stunting to occur.  

Regards, 
Tom Barr

.





 



_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/aquatic-plants