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Re: potassium proteinate complex
Let me start by thanking Ivo, Paul, Dave and Dave for their replies. I'm
planning a trip into Ottawa in the next week and will try and pick up some
potassium sulphate then.
In the meantime, my pharmacist had got some 50 mg "potassium gluconate"
tablets that he exchanged for the "potassium proteinate complex". The 10
gallon tank that two weeks earlier had been full of gorgeous H. difformis
was by this time looking pretty dismal, so I decided to use the tablets
until I could get into the city.
Aiming for a 10 ppm concentration, I dissolved eight 50 mg tablets in a
couple of cups of hot water, and after they dissolved, filtered the sediment
out and added the solution to the tank in question. This was about 1:00 p.m.
Everything looked fine when I went to bed at about midnight.
By morning however, I had a disaster on my hands; the tank inhabitants
(3 ottos and 3 SAEs <and no algae!>) were gasping at the surface, one SAE
was dead, and the water was extremely cloudy. I moved the fish immediately
to another tank, but lost an otto and the other two SAEs by the following
morning.
What I assume happened was that the bacterial bloom caused by the
addition of the gluconate "nutrient" depleted the oxygen levels to the point
where the fish were suffocating. I had expected some clouding from bacteria
in the water, but not to the extent that I ended up with, or I would have
put the fish into another tank BEFORE I added anything to the water. The
water cleared within a day, and all seems to have returned to normal, and
I'm waiting to see results of the added potassium. Does anybody else have a
different idea on what caused the problems?
I just wanted to post this as a cautionary anecdote. The upside of this
little lesson is that it happened in a 10 gallon tank, not the 110 gallon!
Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous New Year,
Ron Barter
Perth, Ontario