So that the inhabitants of the aquarium are 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 here useful ingredients, 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 in the store or make it yourself.
Chemistry and life
In order to provide your aquatic pets with an adequate and full life, you need to know how to add potassium to the aquarium, what other ingredients should be present in the water. Plants living in a tiny artificial 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 salts are irreplaceable.
In sales there are ready-made compounds. There are a lot of options for liquid fertilizers. They are designed for different composition of the flora. You can buy a separate useful substance, you can purchase a ready-made mixture. In determining what exactly a person needs, it is important not only to know what the needs of the cultivated aquatic inhabitants are, but also the characteristics of the particular product they like. Some contain only one substance, others multicomponent compounds that are useful for a certain kind of vegetation, but can harm other varieties.
Features of different products
When choosing potassium sulfate suitable for an aquarium, as well as considering multi-component fertilizers with potassium inclusions, it is worth paying attention to the technical features of different products. Some products are sold in ampoules. Their contents are intended for a specific volume of water. How big is indicated on the package. There is an alternative form of release - liquid in a large package. The owner measures the required amount from a large tank and pours it into the aquarium as needed. It is important to strictly observe the dosage. If concentration is exceeded, conditions may become unsuitable for the survival of vegetation and fish.
There are fertilizers in solid form. On sale are specialized tablets for aquariums. Using them is quite convenient, but keep in mind that each tablet is also designed for a specific volume of water. If the aquarium is larger or smaller than the specified size, you need to adjust the dosage. The instructions that accompany the product must provide detailed information on the rules for using the product.
Can you do it yourself?
Although there are many liquid and solid types of products on sale, some people prefer to add potassium to the aquarium with their own hands, without using industrially prepared solutions. The classic fertilizer recipe for a small home glazed pond involves a combination of water and potassium salt. For 110 g of salt, take one liter of liquid. As the salt, sulfate or potassium sulfate is used. 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 a hundred-liter, you will need to add 10 ml of the finished solution.
Alternative recipe
You can make Samemes potassium for the aquarium with the inclusion of additional ingredients useful for vegetation. One of the most popular options involves combining the following ingredients. First, 0.7 L of distilled water is boiled, left to slightly cool, and then magnesium sulfate (10 mg), citric acid (30 g), iron salt (10 g), copper sulfate (0.5 g) and zinc are successively 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), Tsitovit (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 must very responsibly follow the rules for handling the substance.
As all ingredients are combined, add distilled water so that the total volume is one liter. The preparation is fully prepared and you can use it to improve the nutritional qualities of the liquid in the home aquarium. You should make such a tool every day. For a 50-liter capacity, the optimal dose is a milliliter.
Important aspects
The vegetation in the aquarium needs oxygen. An equally useful ingredient in the environment is carbon dioxide. So that plants can fully exist, protein generation reactions proceed normally, nitrogen must be added to the medium. 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 lack of protein. Gradually, the paint of the leaves becomes faded or disappears completely, the vegetation begins to lose its leaves.
The relevance of fertilizers containing potassium for the aquarium is that it is this element that disappears from the fluid in which the flora lives, especially quickly. The owner’s task is to regularly check the condition, take care of maintaining the chemical balance, and introduce useful compounds into the environment on 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 loss of parts of plants, does not introduce the trace elements that the inhabitants of a home reservoir need, 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 any doubtful signs are manifested. For example, one may suspect that potassium sulfate, 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 reservoir, as well as its inhabitants. Some owners prefer varieties of herbs with powerful roots. If the owner has chosen just such forms to fertilize them, you need to place top dressing in the soil zone. The easiest way to use store pills - there are those that contain only potassium, if combined formulations. You need to choose special fertilizers for vegetation that lives in the water. Otherwise, the feeding procedure will be ineffective or even harmful.
Nuances of application
Mostly tablets for sale are universal fertilizer options that can be used to feed almost any aquatic plant. In addition to potassium, they contain iron and other ingredients important for the normal functioning of the flora.
Some forms of fertilizer need to be buried in the soil of the aquarium. Only in this way useful ingredients will be able to spread evenly throughout the environment in which the plants live. The instructions describe the depth to which the product should be applied. Following the established rules, the owner guarantees adequate nutrition of the roots of vegetation.
About liquid form
Choosing how to add potassium to the aquarium, it is worth taking a closer look at numerous fertilizers in the form of a liquid. Most ready-made store formulations are multicomponent products that contain not only the specified ingredient, but also iron, nitrogen, phosphorus molecules. Such fertilizers are especially important at the stage of planting seedlings. Liquid products are introduced directly into the water. They are useful for all vegetation not fixed in the ground. Liquid fertilizers are easy to use, it will not be difficult to control how many ingredients enter the environment. If, by mistake, a person has added too many substances, you need to drain the water and pour clean. It is necessary to apply liquid fertilizers on a schedule, constantly. Only in this way will it be possible to adequately control the content of useful ingredients in the environment.
Potassium: on the problems of making
Without proper care, no growth and development of plants can be expected. According to experts on the breeding of aquatic vegetation, a lack of potassium is perhaps the most common problem for owners of aquariums. This trace element is extremely important. In order for the concentration to be stable, you need to enter the substance regularly. While there are no household appliances that would allow in a short time to accurately determine how much potassium is contained in the liquid. This creates the risk 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 an acceptable border. The only reliable option is to send fluid samples to the laboratory, but this is an expensive method that requires an impressive amount of time, so it is completely unsuitable for amateurs.
It is important!
What to do in this situation? According to people experienced in running aquariums, you just need to add potassium constantly in such an amount to accurately avoid a deficiency, but not exceed this norm. Take into account the characteristics of the cultivated flora. Some need more potassium than other types. The standard norm is 5-30 mg per liter for a week. You can add the substance every day, weekly. You can add potassium after changing the water, you can make it a rule to add a substance every two days.
If you manage to maintain the potassium content in the liquid in the aquarium in the proper concentration, the vegetation looks attractive, healthy. It grows faster and develops more actively. If there are signs of a lack of potassium in the form of brittleness and fragility of plants, loss of parts, the owner began to inject potassium and after some time of active growth, signs of ill health are again observed, it is worth suspecting an overdose. With such signs, the volume of the introduced substance is reduced.
Sources and Features
It is not easy to choose the appropriate dosage of potassium for a particular case. Aquariums differ 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 with food. But this connection is in tap water. True, if the aquarium is densely populated, this amount will be too small. If holes appeared on the foliage of aquatic inhabitants, if the edges turn yellow, the leaves become torn, so you need to add potassium to the medium.
However, there are some nuances. Experts, explaining how much potassium in the aquarium should be normal, pay attention: on average, the concentration of this substance is maintained quite stable. For the normal functioning of vegetation, not so much of this compound is needed. But if everything was normal before, but suddenly the plants began to hurt, this indicates a loss of their ability to absorb the trace element. In this case, a high concentration of potassium molecules can be observed in the liquid, but the greens still look bad.
Curious aspects
If parts of the plants die, then the potassium in the aquarium is not absorbed by the greens that live there. Elements of vegetation contain potassium. When they die, they dissolve in the liquid, so the trace element returns to the environment again. In fact, such a situation looks exactly like a lack of potassium. How to understand exactly whether an excess or deficiency of a microelement is the cause of an unhealthy type of vegetation? Of course, the best option is a laboratory test, but it is almost inaccessible to an ordinary person.
It is traditionally believed that the addition of potassium to the aquarium cannot harm the vegetation and does not provoke the development of harmful algae. Some are convinced that this trace element can be safely administered in any volume - there will be no harm from this. Potassium is not as harmless as ordinary people used to think. An overabundance of this element in the aquatic environment leads to the closure of the growth points of greenery, and causes the leaves to fall. Such signs are easily confused with symptoms of a lack of phosphorus, nitrogen, or other compounds. It should be borne in mind that potassium slows the absorption of calcium, which in the aquatic environment is already not very much.
Chemical reactions and their features
Potassium is a microelement that positively affects vegetation if it is present in the environment in an adequate concentration. But in the case of excessive accumulation, it prevents greens from absorbing nitrogen. This leads to the impossibility of chemical reactions of the absorption of phosphorus from the aqueous medium. The plant is in a state where there are too many phosphates that cannot be absorbed. Moreover, it inhibits the ability to absorb other beneficial substances. The plant appears in a compote and suffers from an overdose. Apparently, all reactions are closely interconnected. In order to avoid the appearance of such an environment contaminated with various substances, it is necessary to responsibly feed and use potassium in adequate amounts.