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Seachem equilibrium to high potassium

Nikola

Nikola

Member
Joined
9 May 2020
Messages
182
Location
Slovakia
Just a quick question,
I started using RO/DI water for aquarium, and using seachem equilibrium for raising GH.
It ads quite a lot of potassium.
To reach 5GH it is adding 65ppm of K. Plus from fertilizers it is around 70ppm.
Is this good for plants?
 
Hi all,
Nikola said:
I started using RO/DI water for aquarium, and using seachem equilibrium for raising GH.
It ads quite a lot of potassium.
To reach 5GH it is adding 65ppm of K. Plus from fertilizers it is around 70ppm.
Is this good for plants?
Click to expand...
The easy answer is just don't use <"Seachem Equilibrium"> - <"Seachem method of potassium dosing"> and you don't need to pay more for DI water (than for RO). For our purposes the <"ion exchange resin cartridge"> makes absolutely no difference.

@Zeus. and @Hanuman have actually <"written a remineralising sheet"> into the <"IFC calculator">.

If you have <"hard, alkaline, tap water">? You can use that to add <"dGH and dKH">.

cheers Darrel
 
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Thank you Darrel. I already saw you posted about adding MgSO4*7H2O and CaCl2*2H2O.
I will use this equilibrium which I have left to dose till some 20ppm of K, and use calculator for ading rest.
Do u think I should go 4:1 or 3:1 CA:Mg?
 
dw1305 said:
For our purposes the <"ion exchange resin cartridge"> makes absolutely no difference.
Click to expand...
Darrel, I largely agree, but I like to think my DI stage picks up some of the slag from the RO stage - that is, certain ionized compounds too small to be picked up by the RO stage. My water TDS out the RO stage is around 4 ppm... after the DI stage its around 1 when its new, that is. I am quite lenient in terms of how often I change my DI cartridge to be honest. It's certainly more of a consideration for the purist (pun intended). By and large an RO stage is all you need.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Nikola said:
To reach 5GH it is adding 65ppm of K. Plus from fertilizers it is around 70ppm.
Is this good for plants?
Click to expand...
Mmm, for a skilfull co2 injector they can probably circum navigate around this, for most mere mortals like me and you yes, 70ppm of K is at best uncalled for, and more than likely harmful to aquatic plants.

Are you targeting 5dgh for livestock reasons?
 
John q said:
Mmm, for a skilfull co2 injector they can probably circum navigate around this, for most mere mortals like me and you yes, 70ppm of K is at best uncalled for, and more than likely harmful to aquatic plants.

Are you targeting 5dgh for livestock reasons?
Click to expand...
Now when you mentioned CO2, I have just finished three days of diling in a rector. I think(hope) I nailed it. Degased water out of aquarium 24h is 7.6Ph. I'm getting stable 6.2Ph during whole photoperiod. Morning I have 7.4Ph. Flow is all over the tank....let's see.

I was at first planing on 3dgh(than equilibrium is ok, giving 39ppm of K), but my rotalla blood red started having curly new leaves and some of the steams completely stuned. So I wanted to rule out CA deficiency.
Maybe it wasn't, now when CO2 is better I will wait for a week and observe.
 
Okay, than where should I look next?
My dosing routine is something like this:
Tropica Premium
Tropica Specialised
KH2PO4
Seachem equilibrium

PPM per week:
K - 43,28ppm
N - 7,4ppm
P - 3,37ppm
Mg - 6,77ppm
Mn- 0,27ppm

What can I be missing?
Sorry that I went of the subject.
 
I switched to RO/DI two weeks ago cause I have hard water here, and rotala was stunting completely. I also trimmed rotala to the ground.
It is now growing back with 30% of stuned steams. I should also say that Rotala is one month in aquarium, went from emmersed.
Maybe transformation period should be longer?
My light regime now is around 12h total. But slowly ramp up and down, with 4,5 hours burst period. Ramping up is going from supper dimmed, just to enable it beign seen trough whole day. It's 4 bulbs T5HO (96W) over 112l aquarium. Should be more than enough for this plant.
 
@Nikola
Rotala sp can be a troublesome plant for some!
Firstly I would ditch the Seachem Equilibrium......and add tap water to the RO water.
75% RO and 25% tap is a decent starting point.
Rotala sp do better in lower nutrient levels and high lighting.....they definitely don't like lots of Potassium.
Konrad one of our Premium plant growers had trouble with Rotala sp....in this thread below.
www.ukaps.org

Rotala Rotundifolia - Growth Issues

Ok , i understand , i have 2 x 24 W lighting on my 64 liter tank . Can you please tell me what are you dosing now ? macros and micros and how much in ppm if possible . I want to try this dosage on my tank since i have rotala and monte carlo aswell . Thank you . BTW how is your hygrophilla...
www.ukaps.org
hoggie
 
Hi @GHNelson
I would not mix back tap water cause I'm not sure what it contains, which amount of CA, Mg... also would like to keep low KH. But I will certainly go with route MgSO4-7H2O and CaCl2*2H2O..

Yeah I was reading that post twice already, that is why I started worrying about equilibrium.
Which ppm of K should be?
2Hr aquarist has some stunning rotalas, they are around 20ppm of potassium.
And 3-8 phosphate, low Nitrate...I'm trying to follow their recommendations.
 
Nikola said:
2Hr aquarist has some stunning rotalas, they are around 20ppm of potassium.
Click to expand...
Hi
That would be my recommendation.....but don't exceed 30ppm.
Can you not source the Local Municipal Water Company Tapwater Report.

Some water parameters below for Colorata....which will be very similar to Blood Red.
www.flowgrow.de

Rotala rotundifolia 'Colorata'

This plant was introduced with the name Rotala sp. 'Colorata' and is apparently a form of the very variable species R. rotundifolia. There are several forms of R. rotundifolia in trade that attain a more or less intensive red colour when cu...
www.flowgrow.de www.flowgrow.de
 
Only thing what I could find online was general hardnness, nothing else.
I have already ordered MgSO4-7H2O and CaCl2*2H2O. On Monday will be able to pick it up.
So 20ppm with equilibrium will be fine? And plus to add salts till I get 3DGH.
 
Fwiw, I did exactly this plan for quite a while - added equilibrium to match my K target and then MgSO4-7H2O and CaCl2*2H2O to get up to my GH target. This was actually all the fertilization I used in my low tech tanks for a while and was great until I ran into iron problems. (Equilibrium has iron, but it's not chelated.)

Just be aware that those two GH salts will precipitate if you mix them together in solution. They are diluted enough in the whole tank, but I couldn't mix 8 gallons worth of minerals in a 2 gallon container of water without solids forming.
 
ElleDee said:
Just be aware that those two GH salts will precipitate if you mix them together in solution. They are diluted enough in the whole tank, but I couldn't mix 8 gallons worth of minerals in a 2 gallon container of water without solids forming.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the first hand input. Before I bought it, was reading lot of positive comments, but now as I see there are quite a lot negative inputs. Better to listen to @dw1305 , and just dich it. I will just use some KCI or K2SO4 for potassium.
 
Hi all,
MichaelJ said:
.... I like to think my DI stage picks up some of the slag from the RO stage - that is, certain ionized compounds too small to be picked up by the RO stage. My water TDS out the RO stage is around 4 ppm... after the DI stage its around 1 when its new ........
Click to expand...
That is it. The DI resin will reduce the conductivity (ions in solution), but it is an incredibly marginal gain and of no real significance.

As an example, if you leave DI water to stand, the conductivity will rise by 3 or 4 microS, purely from the 0.015% of the 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2 that goes into solution as H+ and HCO3- ions.

In terms of salts, 0.01 molar KCl is the 1413 microS. <"Conductivity Standard Solution, 1413 µS/cm, KCl, 250 mL | Hach United Kingdom - Overview | Hach"> conductivity standard. So we talking minute amounts of ions.

Cheers Darrel
 
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Nikola said:
PPM per week:
K - 43,28ppm
N - 7,4ppm
P - 3,37ppm
Mg - 6,77ppm
Mn- 0,27ppm
Click to expand...
Those N, P, K values are crazy high. Adding 7.4 ppm of N per week from Specialized (NH4NO3) is not advised. At most - even with a high energy tank at EI levels - i would say 2-3 ppm./week.
dw1305 said:
As an example, if you leave DI water to stand, the conductivity will rise by 3 or 4 microS, purely from the 0.015% of the 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2 that goes into solution as H+ and HCO3- ions.
Click to expand...
You’re absolutely right. Often I make the water and having it sitting there for a couple days and sure enough the TDS crawls up 4-6 ppm’s just by sitting there. But of course other ionized compounds that the DI removed aren’t coming back. As said, the DI stage is largely redundant for most of us.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Those N, P, K values are crazy high. Adding 7.4 ppm of N per week from Specialized (NH4NO3) is not advised. At most - even with a high energy tank at EI levels - i would say 2-3 ppm./week.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I was in hurry and didn't write it corectly.
NO3, and PO4......not N and P.
 
I have one more question about NO3.
If I stop dosing it completely I will still have it from the fish and plant waste right?
 
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