is Potassium required for reef???? Help??

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

or you could just run a Ca reactor with a good ballanced media in it to keep all your trace elements up..

I never doesed K and never tested it.. never even heard of worring about it untill reciently.. amazing how we ever grew nice SPS tank a few years ago '

Steve

This is bankrupt, no offense. Potassium augments the overall vigor of corals and that's something that you can find user support for even within the confines of this thread. Just because it wasn't used during the pioneering days of SPS systems hardly ratifies the position that it is superfluous.

The closer we get to ULN NSW water levels, the more and more we find that super low Potassium levels leads to destrimental health problems with many corals (especially SPS). This was traditionally not the case back when our tanks struggled with NO3's and phosphates, but that's all changed over the past couple years with the surging popularity of probiotic methodologies. But I digress - you run ULN for any given length of time paying no heed to your potassium (using a lower grade salt, not dosing, etc) and your SPS starts to get pale and sickly. You bring the levels up to NSW and bam, everything flourishes again.

[albert_dao]

Son of a... I had a WICKED reply with molar masses and everything here and the stupid browser screwed up. Anyway, here's a dumbed down version... God...

Originally Posted by sphelps

And exactly how does this product produce "vivid blue coloration"?

If you're looking for a scientific explanation, that's beyond my realm of knowledge. But here's what happens:

You add it to a ULN tank, your acros get super blue. /end

Originally Posted by sphelps

It is after all simply potassium iodide so obviously it adds both potassium and iodide so how can one say it won't help maintain both potassium and iodide levels?

When you look at a product like Potassium Iodide, you should be reading it as Iodide. Period. We're talking about an inorganic compound (K+I−) where the potassium is pretty much irrelevant.

Originally Posted by sphelps

You can't use it to raise levels but with regular water changes it must help maintain K levels, to say otherwise simply doesn't make sense. Also how can you overdose on iodide by following proper dosing directions? K is +1 and Iodide is -1 so close to equal amounts are added.

Iodide is found in NSW at concentrations of 0.06 mg/L
Potassium occurs at 0.4 g/L or 400 mg/L

The water changes (assume a salt that isn't chronically low in potassium) is what helps maintain your levels, not potassium iodide. If you droped even 1% potassium and tried to level it off with PIF, you're going to poision stuff.