you'll make my day if you can help me figure this out

[wetmanNY]

A lot of information to help yvonnedono is available at www.google.com: search "water softener potassium chloride" --omit the quotation marks.

I'm in general accord with the GulfCoastAquarian: sometimes potassium is actually preferred to sodium-- as in low-sodium diets. Depends on what kind of invalid you are caring for. Potassium is always preferred if you're flushing the wastewater into the aquifer or onto your garden...

A little calcium goes a long way. That's desperately hard water for plants! I agree that CO2 diffusion would help a lot.

 

[Raithan Ellis]

wetman - The amount of potassium that would be added to the water using potassium chloride to soften, wouldn't it be such a small amount (as far as plants are concerned) that you would still be required to dose K2SO4 in most planted aquaria?

Regards,
Raithan O. Ellis

 

[GulfCstAquarian]

Originally posted by Raithan Ellis
wetman - The amount of potassium that would be added to the water using potassium chloride to soften, wouldn't it be such a small amount (as far as plants are concerned) that you would still be required to dose K2SO4 in most planted aquaria?

Regards,
Raithan O. Ellis

You raise a really good point to consider. This would definitely depend on how many Mg and Ca ions are found in the water to begin with (for the K ions to exchange). Even in yvonne's hard water, I agree that potassium supplementation might still be necessary to achieve optimal K levels, but I believe the plants should be able to do rather well without any additional K supplementation other than that obtained from the KCl-softened water. And by purchasing bags of KCl for the water softener equipment, potassium supplementation is only a teaspoon of KCl rock salt away.