# Too much K blocking calcium in take????



## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Ok i am seeing what looks to be a Calcium deficiency. 

I got this off chuck site. This is what is happening to the new leaves on my stem plants.

Distorted leaf growth
cupped leaves
twisted and bent leaves

But here are my readings-

Nitrate 10ppm
Nitrie 0
Kh 6d
GH 9d
pH is 6.4
PO4 2ppm
Co2 30ppm
2ml excel 3 x week
1/16 tsp CSM+B 3 x week 
1ml of flourish iron 3 x week.

I think i rember reading some where the to muck K can block Calcium in take.
So i have as of yesterday stopped adding the 1/32 tsp 3 x week to my 10 gallon 5 wpg tank.

I dose 1/32 tsp Kno3 2x week which keeps @ 10ppm all the time. I have no need for PO4 as i have it in my water in 1.5ppm levels.

So my question is, is this the right step to take or am i missing something?


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

I posted this on plantedtank and was told to dose calcium and am mainly just checking to see if this is the way to go.

If this is correct how much, how often, and where can i get my hands on some for cheap?

I have a bag of chushed coral laying around if that will help.


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## Peteman (May 28, 2007)

Shells stuck into a canister filter will work. For macros like K, Ca, Mg etc. hydroponics stores are great. 500g of powder for $2-$4.... veeeeerrry interesting people who work there also :mrgreen:

As for your plants, have to see if adding Ca will work, might take a while to show up. But I can do the exact opposite, get Ca def symptoms with low K (see pic). Different plants seem to react differently. My local water has low K in it and this is what happens if I don't add in 1tsp 3x a week (K2SO4) in my 85gal. I've never had this effect from dosing K too much, or I've never dosed 'too' much. Anyway if it doesn't get better (or even worse) you can always try adding K, the deficiencies and symptoms are not an exact science.



Luck
Pete.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Hi
I can't tell, I don't dose fertilizer chemicals by spoons, use Excel and Flourish. 
If you want you can make PPS-Pro solution and dose as prescribed. Discontinue Flourish, flush the aquarium and tell me what substrate you have. Then if we look at your pH of 6.4 and dKH of 6 we get 70 ppm CO2. What is wrong? Coral gives you more KH, Sodium and other bad ingredients then Calcium. Calcium deficiency is unlikely anyway in 9 dGH water. Post your tap levels including Ca and we will see what to do next.

Thank you
Edward


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## Glouglou (Feb 21, 2006)

Well one really useful thing to investigate my Ludwigia crinckle and distort leaves (especially tops) was to buy a calcium (CA) test from hagen, around 5$ canadian it give you an excellent approximation. A bonus, if you have a GH test, you can know your magnesium concentration> Cool, now you have infos on 2 really important nutrients.

Has I see on most infos out there, Ca limitation is rare in freshwater aquaria.

By those test my ranges go from 25 mg/l to 50 mg/l

Something around 10 to 50 mg/l seem to be a good concentration.
Rapport Ca to Mg should be around 4:1 or 3:1

• Other alkalis have effect on Calcium uptake

> K > Na > Mg > Ca -> They have effect on each others (to much or not enough equal problems)

• Boron have the same effect on Calcium uptake (the range for Boron is narrow from good to bad effects) some African freshwater contain .3ppm, some said that more than .05 ppm cause problems (lot of room to experiment)

you can see that in this link: http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200401/msg00585.html

In my case , I knew I overdosed potassium for some time. I reduced potassium and nitrate (some said it have a relation with Ca uptake to. I see some lead about it (still under investigation)
Nitrate passe from 15 to 4 ppm.
Ludwigia is now beautiful.....


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Hi sorry it took me so long to get back but i have just got busy.

Ok so here are my readings with my tap water set out over night. Without the Calcium readings as i don't have a test kit.

pH 7.9
KH 9d
GH 6d

Also here are some pics that i hope will help. They are they best pics i can take with my camera.

Stunted Rotala rotundifolia


Hygrophila polysperma 'Sunset'






Ok any ideas on whats going on?


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## Glouglou (Feb 21, 2006)

If you can afford the Ca test kit (around 8 to 9 $ canadian, by memory) you will save you a lot of guessing. You will know if you have enough Ca (and Mg). And if you do, that will leave you with an uptake problem cause by to much or not enough of the other alkalis or boron...


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Glouglou said:


> If you can afford the Ca test kit (around 8 to 9 $ canadian, by memory) you will save you a lot of guessing. You will know if you have enough Ca (and Mg). And if you do, that will leave you with an uptake problem cause by to much or not enough of the other alkalis or boron...


Belive me if i had the money i would buy the calcium test kit but i don't see any extra cash comming for a month or so.

Thanks for the help though.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Try adding a little Mg (Epsom salt), see if that helps.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Bert H said:


> Try adding a little Mg (Epsom salt), see if that helps.


I might give that a try. How much should i dose?

On a side note my tapwater kh has droped 2dKH about two weeks ago to the Kh of 6 i have been posting. I am so stupid that i have been posting it and did not realize that it was no longer 8d. 

While looking at the tank to day i noticed that a red stem plant that i don't know the name of after setting there for close to 6 months doing nothing has started to grow really nice red leaves. They are still showing some twisting though.

What the heck is going on in my tank that i can't test for????

This tank is becoming a PITA.

I guess that i will have to see how the this 2dKH drop in my tapwater will effect my tank.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

> How much should i dose?


Try adding approx 1/16tsp 2x/wk.

Will, on one of your posts (#6) you state your pH is 7.9 and if your kh is 6, you essentially have no CO2 there. Something is screwy somewhere.


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## Glouglou (Feb 21, 2006)

On the last photo you post, I think you can see relatively clearly the interveinal chlorosis (discoloration) a tale-tale of magnesium deficiency.

And if magnesium deficiency can cause problem in Ca absorption, There you have distort new leaves...

I vote for magnesium to...


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Bert H said:


> Try adding approx 1/16tsp 2x/wk.
> 
> Will, on one of your posts (#6) you state your pH is 7.9 and if your kh is 6, you essentially have no CO2 there. Something is screwy somewhere.


I bought my KH test kit from a guy on line who said that he had just used a little and it was just under a year old by a couple of months. I know i have had it like six months. Do you think that the KH kit could have gone bad on me?

If this is what has happened then my KH might not have gone down. Man that would stinks because the only store that sells the KH kit is 30 mins away.

I will try the 1/13tsp 2x/wk and see what happens. Thanks to the both of you.


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## ridgerider (Jun 15, 2005)

I have a 29 gallon tank at work, and have experienced the same symptoms a number of times, mostly on my swords. I've discovered that, for my tank, Mg limiting the Ca uptake is the problem (I check Ca/Mg regularly). I add PPS solutions daily (except when I get so busy that I forget, which has occasionally happened regularly for weeks at a time). I add extra K to facilitate the Mg/Ca uptake, adding extra on Friday afternoons to carry it over the weekend. I was able to connect symptoms you describe, including "sunburning", to those weekends that I forgot to add enough extra K (oh, those long weekends!), especially when I lowered K to keep from increasing GH. Recently, I upped my K supplementation, and was pleasantly surprised to find the black spots on my swords were no longer appearing on the older leaves...


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

OK it's been a week and since i have been really busy i have only added 1/16 once this week instead of the twice like you said, but I can already see that some of my plants are showing less sings of stress ( twisted leaves). They are looking better after just one dose which says to me that this was the cause or at least one of the causes. I will keep everyone posted on how they plants progress. 

On a side note the red plant i was was talking about before is starting to look bad again, but i think this plant really really needs low nitrates or else it goes bad on me. Does anyone else have a plant that does this when there nitrates get on the high side? Not that most of you allow this to happen to often.


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## Glouglou (Feb 21, 2006)

Personally (even if i’m not absolutely sure bescause multiple parameter was changed together) I lower my nitrate from around 10 to around 4/5 mg/l. My Ludwigia is now a nice purplish red, distortion of new leaves gone, good roots system, and most of the others plant look reealy good.

Some people said that higher nitrate cause problems (and cause Ca blockage) I saw in some scientific paper that show a relation with Nitrate and calcium in the plant...
Still investigating that relation....


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Glouglou said:


> Personally (even if i'm not absolutely sure bescause multiple parameter was changed together) I lower my nitrate from around 10 to around 4/5 mg/l. My Ludwigia is now a nice purplish red, distortion of new leaves gone, good roots system, and most of the others plant look reealy good.
> 
> Some people said that higher nitrate cause problems (and cause Ca blockage) I saw in some scientific paper that show a relation with Nitrate and calcium in the plant...
> Still investigating that relation....


So i assume that you are yet another person who had to alter the "standard EI Dosing Method" after some time is this true?


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

will5 said:


> So i assume that you are yet another person who had to alter the "standard EI Dosing Method" after some time is this true?


I think it's normal that people alter the EI dosing after using it for a while. Every tank is different and requires more or less of various ferts depending on many factors.

I've never undertsood where the idea came from that the initial EI dosing amounts are mandatory. EI is made to be "tweaked" to fit individual situations. The initial dosing amounts are just a guide... In fact any dosing method can/will be tweaked to get the best results.

For example if I have a tank with hard water I usually need to use at a minimum the EI recommended amounts and usually more. On the other hand, I've found that a tank with softer water can usually use lower amounts.

I've been experimenting with PPS-Pro and also found that in the tank I'm testing it in (high KH), I need to increase the amount of KH2PO4 in the mix significantly in order to eliminate GSA that was appearing.

Tweaking is part of the fun! :mrgreen:


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Laith said:


> Tweaking is part of the fun! :mrgreen:


Tweaking is the part that scares me. I am afraid that if i tweak something i might kill my plants or even worse my fish.

The only time this tank was balanced was when i first set it up after that it has became the PITA that it is today. I can't keep things balanced in this take to save my life. I have always algae of some type and stunting after those 2 or 3 sweet months that everything was balanced.

It kills me because my 29 gallon has minor stunting but no algae at all except when i let my diy co2 die off and then i get BBA when life gets a little busy but that's it. Mg fixed the stunting in this tank as well.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

I can tell you that it is not Ca deficiency - it's too much NO3 and propably too little K or Mg.
Nitrogen can easily induce Ca deficiency even if it's at moderate level (say, 10 ppm).


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## SnakeIce (May 9, 2005)

Useing Ca and Gh tests to find your Mg levels in the water is at best a guess. 

For example here in Orem Utah I have,

40-50 ppm Ca

120-140ppm Gh

But Mg levels are so lacking that I have to dose at least 2 ppm Mg or I get hardly any growth at all. I also am personally experienceing the lack of Mg in the water here and have to take Mg suppliments to keep my muscles from getting really tense.

Even if Mg levels are 5 ppm, which I doubt they are, there is still 65-85 ppm of non CaMg Gh here. Assumeing that all Gh is Ca or Mg really misses the boat.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

All the issues with stunting will go away if one does the following:

1. Decrease NO3 to 3..5 ppm
2. Add 20 ppm K (or more) at every water change (20 ppm K per changed water volume !)
3. Add 2 ppm K daily
4. Ensure there is GH 6..10 and Ca:Mg at a ratio 3:1..4:1 (lower Ca:Mg works better at lower GH)

NO3 excess is the main cause of stunting when there is not enough Mg, K, Ca at the same time. I use the routine above with great success.


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