Potassium in an aquarium with plants: dosage and use as fertilizer

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

In order for the inhabitants of the aquarium to be in order, vegetation and fish can exist normally, the balance of the chemical components of the environment is important. From time to time, you need to add useful ingredients here, specialized solutions that will give the aquatic flora a sufficient amount of trace elements for life. Fertilizers, additives designed to nourish the flora, you can buy at the store or make your own.

Chemistry and life

To ensure an adequate and fulfilling life for your aquatic pets, you need to know how to add potassium to the aquarium, what other ingredients should be present in the water. Plants living in an artificial tiny pond need phosphorus and nitrogen. In addition, a sufficient amount of manganese and boron must be provided. Complex fertilizers usually include molybdenum compounds, zinc and copper. Bicarbonates, calcium and magnesium s alts are indispensable.

On saleready compositions. There are a lot of options for liquid fertilizers. They are designed for a different composition of the flora. You can buy a separate useful substance, you can buy a ready-made mixture. When determining what exactly a person needs, it is important not only to know what are the needs of the grown aquatic inhabitants, but also the features of a particular product that you like. Some contain only one substance, others are multi-component compounds that are useful for a certain kind of vegetation, but can harm other varieties.

Features of different products

When choosing a suitable potassium sulfate for an aquarium, as well as considering multi-component fertilizers with potassium inclusions, you should pay attention to the technical features of different products. Some products are sold in ampoules. Their content is designed for a specific volume of water. How big is indicated on the package. There is an alternative form of release - a liquid in a large package. The owner measures the required amount from a large container and pours into the aquarium as needed. It is important to strictly follow the dosage. If the concentration is exceeded, the conditions may become unsuitable for the survival of vegetation, fish.

There are fertilizers in solid form. Specialized tablets for aquariums are on sale. Using them is quite convenient, but keep in mind that each tablet is also designed for a specific amount of water. If the aquarium is larger or smaller than the specified size, the dosage must be adjusted. The instructions accompanying the product must provide detailed information aboutproduct usage guidelines.

Can I do it myself?

Although there are many liquid and solid varieties of products on the market, some people prefer to add potassium to the aquarium by themselves, rather than using commercially prepared solutions. The classic fertilizer recipe for a home small glazed pond involves the combination of water and potassium s alts. For 110 g of s alt take one liter of liquid. Sulphate or potassium sulfate is used as a s alt. In order for the chemical components to dissolve well, you need to heat the liquid to a temperature of 25 degrees. If the aquarium is 100 liters, you will need to add 10 ml of the prepared solution.

Alternative recipe

You can make a potash mix for an aquarium with the inclusion of additional ingredients that are good for vegetation. One of the most popular options involves the combination of the following ingredients. First, 0.7 l of distilled water is boiled, left to cool slightly, after which magnesium sulfate (10 mg), citric acid (30 g), iron s alt (10 g), copper sulfate (0.5 g) and zinc are sequentially introduced into the liquid. (0.6 g). The solution is infused for an hour, boric acid (one third of a gram), potassium sulfate (9 g), Cytovit (four copies), Ferovit (also four), vitamin B2 (a couple of ampoules) are added. The final step is the introduction of sulfuric acid. Dose - 20 ml. The last component is considered the most dangerous, you need to follow the rules for handling the substance very responsibly.

As all the ingredients are combined, add distilledwater so that the total volume is one liter. The drug is fully prepared and can be used to improve the nutritional quality of the liquid in the home aquarium. This should be applied every day. For a 50-liter container, the optimal dose is a milliliter.

Important aspects

Vegetation living in an aquarium needs oxygen. An equally useful ingredient in the environment is carbon dioxide. In order for plants to fully exist, the reactions of protein generation to proceed normally, nitrogen must be added to the environment. The inhabitants of the aquarium need minerals, without which many vital chemical processes are impossible. As observations have shown, if the owner of the aquarium does not know how to add potassium to the aquarium with his own hands, what ready-made additives to use, the inhabitants of the aquatic environment begin to need a chemical element. This leads to a slowdown in synthesis. Soon the inhabitants of the reservoir will face a shortage of proteins. Gradually, the color of the leaves will become faded or disappear completely, the vegetation will begin to lose its leaves.

The relevance of fertilizers containing potassium for the aquarium is that this element disappears from the liquid in which the flora lives, especially quickly. The task of the owner is to regularly check the condition, take care of maintaining the chemical balance, and introduce useful compounds into the environment in time. To understand what exactly is not enough in the aquarium, you need to look at the appearance of the plants. If a person does not pay attention to the change in shade and the loss of plant parts, he does not add the trace elements that are neededinhabitants of a domestic pond, they will simply die.

Features of vegetation development

Experienced specialists know exactly what symptoms indicate a lack of minerals, chemical components, what exactly is missing in the environment, if certain dubious signs appear. For example, one can suspect that potassium sulphate, iron are present in too low a concentration in the aquarium, if light spots are visible on the stems and leaves, if the plants do not grow.

Feeding Features

You need to know that how to add potassium to the aquarium correctly depends on the characteristics of a particular home pond, as well as its inhabitants. Some owners prefer green varieties with strong roots. If the owner has chosen just such forms, in order to fertilize them, you need to place top dressing in the soil zone. The easiest way is to use store-bought tablets - there are those that contain only potassium, if combined formulations. It is necessary to choose special fertilizers for vegetation that lives in water. Otherwise, the feeding procedure will be ineffective or even harmful.

Introduction nuances

Mostly commercially available tablets are versatile fertilizer options that can be used to feed almost any aquatic vegetation. In addition to potassium, they contain iron and other ingredients important for the normal functioning of the flora.

Some form of fertilizer needs to be buried in the aquarium soil. Only in this way can useful ingredients be evenlyspread throughout the environment in which plants live. The instructions describe how deep you need to apply the product. By observing the established rules, the owner guarantees adequate nutrition of the vegetation roots.

About liquid form

When choosing how to add potassium to an aquarium, it is worth taking a closer look at the numerous liquid fertilizers. Most ready-made store formulations are multicomponent products that contain not only the specified ingredient, but also iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus molecules. Such fertilizers are especially important at the stage of planting seedlings. Liquid products are injected directly into the water. They are useful for all vegetation that is not fixed in the ground. Liquid fertilizers are easy to use, and it's easy to control how much of the ingredients get into the medium. If by mistake a person has added too many substances, you need to drain the water and fill it with clean water. It is necessary to make liquid fertilizers on a schedule, constantly. This is the only way to adequately control the content of beneficial ingredients in the medium.

Potassium: about application problems

Without proper care, no growth and development of plants can be expected. Potassium deficiency is perhaps the most common problem for aquarists, according to aquatic plant breeders. This trace element is extremely important. In order for the concentration to be stable, the substance must be administered regularly. While there are no household appliances that would allow in a short time exactlydetermine how much potassium is contained in the liquid. This creates the danger of an overdose of potassium in the aquarium, because there are no specialized tests that would show the proximity of the substance content in the medium to the permissible limit. The only reliable option is to send fluid samples to a lab, but this is costly and time-consuming, and therefore not at all suitable for hobbyists.

This is important

What to do in such a situation? According to people experienced in maintaining aquariums, you just need to add potassium constantly in such an amount that you definitely avoid a deficiency, but do not exceed this rate. Take into account the characteristics of the cultivated flora. Some need more potassium than other species. The standard rate is 5-30 mg per liter for a week. You can add the substance every day, weekly. You can add potassium after a water change, you can make it a rule to add the substance every two days.

If you manage to maintain the potassium content in the liquid in the aquarium at the proper concentration, the vegetation looks attractive, he althy. It grows faster and develops more actively. If there are signs of potassium deficiency in the form of fragility and fragility of plants, loss of parts, the owner began to introduce potassium and after some time of active growth signs of ill he alth are again observed, it is worth suspecting an overdose. With such signs, the volumes of the applied substance are reduced.

Sources and Features

It is not easy to find the right dosage of potassium for a particular case. Aquariumsdiffer in size, population, and water features. Fish food does not contain potassium, so you should not expect that the water will be replenished with a useful trace element from food. But this compound is in tap water. True, if the aquarium is densely populated, this amount will be too small. If holes appear on the foliage of aquatic inhabitants, if the edges turn yellow, the leaves become torn, then you need to add potassium to the medium.

There are, however, some nuances. Experts, explaining how much potassium in the aquarium should be normal, pay attention: on average, the concentration of this substance is maintained fairly stable. For the normal functioning of vegetation, not so much of this compound is needed. But if earlier everything was normal, but suddenly the plants began to hurt, this indicates a loss of their ability to absorb the microelement. In this case, the liquid may have a high concentration of potassium molecules, but the greens still look bad.

Curious aspects

If parts of the plants die, it means that the potassium in the aquarium is not absorbed by the greenery living there. Vegetation elements contain potassium. When they die, they dissolve in the liquid, so the microelement returns to the environment again. In fact, this situation looks exactly the same as a lack of potassium. How to understand exactly whether an overabundance or lack of a trace element is the cause of an unhe althy type of vegetation? Of course, the best option is laboratory testing, but it is practically inaccessible to the average person.

It is traditionally believed that adding potassium to an aquarium cannot harm the vegetation and does not provoke the development of harmful algae. Some are convinced that this microelement can be safely introduced in any amount - there will be no harm from this. Potassium is not as harmless as the townsfolk used to think. An excess of this element in the aquatic environment leads to the closure of green growth points, causing the leaves to fall. Such signs are easily confused with symptoms of lack of phosphorus, nitrogen or other compounds. It should be borne in mind that potassium slows down the absorption of calcium, which is already not very abundant in the aquatic environment.

Chemical reactions and their features

Potassium is a microelement that has a positive effect on vegetation, if present in the environment in adequate concentration. But in the case of excessive accumulation, it prevents the greenery from absorbing nitrogen. This leads to the impossibility of chemical reactions of absorption of phosphorus from the aquatic environment. The plant is in a state where there are too many phosphates around that cannot be absorbed. Moreover, it inhibits the ability to absorb other useful substances. The plant ends up in a "compote" and suffers from an overdose. As can be seen, all reactions are closely interrelated. Feeding responsibly and using adequate amounts of potassium is essential to avoid this polluted environment.