Overdose potasium

[seriousdude5]

Hello I added potassium to my reef for the first time yesterday on suggestion of the man at the LFS. Unfortunelty he didn't haven bottle to sell me so he gave me some in a container and told me to add 2 teaspoons to my tank. My tank is 50 gallons and I woke up today and everything looked fine but my sunset monti is having issues. Did I use to much of it? If so how much water should I change. Everything else looks fine I have about 30 other specimens.

[kylathwe]

I've never even heard of someone dosing KCl into their tank. What were your levels and what are the normal levels? I would think water changes would help if you are having problems.

[dunk373]

levels should be around 380-400, guess your trying to color your corals up? It is hard to test for, whats wrong with your sunset?

[seriousdude5]

levels should be around 380-400, guess your trying to color your corals up? It is hard to test for, whats wrong with your sunset?


I do not have a test kit the owner of the store was just like add two teaspoons a week an you should be fine. Anyways the sunset lost a lot of its base color the tissue was coming off, but not the polyps. The polyps remained closed tight. I dipped it tonight and checked on it a few hours later and some polyps have began to open on the edges. I have other montis as well that had no ill effects, so that's why I didn't jump to the potassium.

[kylathwe]

I don't think you should ever have to dose potassium and definitely don't dose anything without knowing your levels.

[tmz]

Not sure what is wrong with the monit.
Dosing potassium without measuring for it is not a good idea ,imo. At some level it an be harmful . Most tanks will get plenty of potassium from foods and salt mix in any case.

[DiscusHeckel]

If you buy the Salifert Potassium test kit, you will be able to measure the potassium levels in your tank easily.

[animalkingdom]

I've dosed potassium nitrate in the past to my tank when experimenting with nitrate and phosphate levels and I had no ill effect from the potassium counter ion...

edit... to the best of my knowledge

[bnumair]

without a test is hard to say. potassium in NSW is 400 ppm. and most reputable saltmix in market today along with water changes regularly i doubt one needs to dose any.

[bertoni]

I'd stop dosing the potassium, at least until I had a potassium test kit. It's also possible that the supplement has impurities that are causing the trouble.