lduncan

Well I find it interesting that Habib as the owner Salifert, a company which produces both test kits and supplements, has looked at research, and by the sound of it experimented with potassium, shows little interest in producing a test kit or potassium additive. Randy has stated: Layton

It may make sense, but they were nothing to do with raising alkalinity. The what he was talking was skewing the equilibrium of hydrogen carbonate / carbonate, not increasing the concentrations. The reference he provided does the same. It has nothing to do with increasing alkalinity, it's looking at seeing what happens when you change the partial pressures of atmospheric CO2. Trying to model climate change from the past, and into the future. Well they asked the question "does bicarbonate addition increase coral growth rates", did a few experiments and answered it. The answer was yes: Layton

I think you miss the point of the whole concept behind the placebo effect.

Placebo effect maybe? Looks like an interesting thread, I'll read it properly tonight. Looks like Habib answered many of my questions: Layton

This guy doesn't agree at all. Neither do I. It's not true. Layton

Don't worry about GH. Carbonate hardness is the thing to look at. GH is not particularly important as reef keepers monitor magnesium and calcium independently. Layton

The whale shark in the second pic is 42' long apparently

Yip. Absolutely amazing. It's a 6.2 million gallon aquarium!! It looks like the middle of the ocean! From Reef Keeping's thread of the month: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... did=739892 Layton

Guess what part of the world these pics were taken: Layton

It is generally the iodide ion which is dosed. Elemental iodine is still a relatively strong oxidizer (like ozone or chlorine but not as reactive), not something you usually want to be adding directly to the tank. It serves it's purpose as a dip, but what's added to the aquarium as a supplement is generally iodide. Many commercial iodine supplements are potassium iodide (Seachem, Red Sea etc). The iodine you get from the chemist is different, it can be a mixture of different things: elemental iodine dissolved in alcohol and potassium iodide are common. Why is potassium used over sodium? Well KI is commonly used in medicine, it's used in preference to NaI because NaI is hydgroscopic. KI is less hydgroscopic. Because KI is more widely used than NaI, it's easier and less expensive to get hold of, and that's why i guess most commercial supplements use it.

Nope. Busy at work. I'll get round to looking some time. You know there's nothing stopping you from looking too

I agree, i think 400's are overkill on anything up to 600 high. Layton

Another interesting thing is that some people have been dosing potassium for years in the form of iodine additions.

That's not what you've done. You have completely changed the meaning. I'll PM you why, and keep the details out of this thread. I wasn't specifically addressing you, it's just some things to think about. That's fine. If you do come across anything interesting on potassium, post it. Layton

Well Deltec for example sell re-badged merck test kits. It's well known. It would be nice to know what the KZ one is, that's all. After all KZ (just like deltec) aren't in the business of water testing.

Could you please stop quoting me completely out of context. I'm not looking for proof (I didn't even mention the word), just information. Nor do I "expect" you to provide it. As far as observations from people using K balance, the first point is that because KZ don't provide information on what is in there products, it's difficult to say whether the results people see with K balance is actually due to potassium. For example, you'll also note that sulfur is another element which is found to be lower than NSW levels in many salts. So say that KZ use a potassium sulfate salt in their mix, how do you know that it's the potassium, and not the sulfate which is causing any effect? The second thing i guess is what prompted the development of the product? Was there any research behind it? If so, what was it? Was it a case of this paper suggests that potassium is important in this process in corals, and that lower than NSW levels of potassium can effect this process? Maybe we should test for potassium? What happens if we add potassium? Or was it a case of if we add this stuff to the tank then there is an effect on the corals, and because this stuff happens to have potassium in it, it must be the potassium which causes the changes? I have no opinion one way or the other at the moment on the usefulness of dosing potassium. But it would be useful to know what potassium is used for, and how it relates to better growth and colour. One thing that i think is important if you are going to dose it, is to be able to test for it. Layton

Got any info on the role of potassium in the ocean? I guess the question is, is it important that potassium levels are the same as NSW? Does it occur well in excess of animals requirements in NSW? Is it consumed at a rapid rate? Layton

Bigger is always better.

By what company? KZ obviously aren't in the business of making test kits, or anything remotely related. If one was to purchase this test kit, it'd be nice to know who's research and quality assurance is producing it, regardless of who re-badges it. Layton

Who supplies it? Merck are one of the few companies which produce a water potassium kit (a pretty crude one though) Layton

A lab should easily be able to test it.

I haven't seen any convincing info one way or the other on dosing potassium. I wouldn't think that it would be particularly susceptible to being skimmed out, kind of like magnesium and sodium aren't. Rapid depletion? I don't know. Potassium's main function is in cellular processes. It's not used like calcium or magnesium in calcification. So there's no large consumer of it in the tank. The only real way to know is to test for it. There is a fair amount of potassium in seawater, so I don't know whether or not depletion is going to matter a whole lot to corals. Maybe the cells need a certain differential across them to function properly? Layton

This one is from september 2005 http://forum.marinedepot.com/Attachment336.aspx He uses DSB's

dunno, doesn't even look like the same tank though. Maybe it's another one of his?

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Attachment336.aspx