[NoahLikesFish]

Ok so I have 2 questions, can shrimp (amino cherry ghost other neocaridina and Stuff maybe fan shrimp) go with rainbows Pearl gourami SAE and other nano fish in a heavily planted tank and my second question is could I use banana as a ‘root tab’ and feed my fish with it, it contains potassium which is a nutrient which I need extra of because my hard water but I just spent all my money at aquatic arts on nano Fish

 

[Griznatch]

I'll give this a shot...
1: a fish will eat anything that fits in it's mouth... some fish are more aggressive hunters than others. I'm guessing the SAE and probably the gourami will eat your smaller shrimp and for sure any shrimp fry.
2: the bananna will most likely pollute your water column more than provide much benefit of the potassium being released. I'd hold off until you get more funds and get some liquid potassium.

 

[ichthyogeek]

1) I think you're going to have to further define what you mean by "rainbows" (also, please use commas). Like, boesemanni rainbows are far different from Pseudomugils. Pseudomugils might be shrimp safe, but I doubt a boesemanni will be. Pearl gourami would eat the smaller shrimp. And what other "nano fish" are you talking about? Pea puffers are technically nanos, but they're 100% not shrimp safe.

2) So here's info from a quick google search: a banana at 7-8" long (118 g) should have approximately 422 mg of potassium in it. Not including what potassium ends up being bioavailable or not.

Assuming you have a 10 gallon tank and you need to increase potassium by 2 mg/L , the 10 gallon tank = ~38 L, so you need 76 mg straight potassium, which translates to roughly (8"/422 mg * 76 mg = ) 1.44" of banana. Which, of course, doesn't include the sugars you're adding to the tank. About 1.5" of banana is still a lot of banana, and I'd be willing to bet it'd rot in your tank rather than provide any useful potassium.

 

[jellopuddinpop]

Yeah, this one might be a first. I would strongly recommend against using a banana for a potassium supplement.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I would be feeding it to the fish to enrich their waste with potassium

 

[jellopuddinpop]

Wouldn't just dosing potassium be easier?

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I haven’t found a good pure potassium thing to dose

 

[ElleDee]

I haven’t found a good pure potassium thing to dose

Potassium is not dose in "pure" form, it's dosed as a salt that dissolves in water so you end up with potassium ions and ions of whatever the other part of the salt is, so when you dose potassium there's always something else that comes along with it. I use Seachem Equilibrium in one of my tanks and that is largely potassium, but people also use still like KNO3, KH2PO4, K2SO4, etc. Seachem Potassium is K2SO4 dissolved in water, not pure potassium. I have heard of people using salt replacement (KCl) from the grocery store, but then you have to consider anti-caking agents and other additives. I would chance the anti-caking agents over rotting banana though.

Thanks for doing the math, @ichthyogeek. Imagining that huge chunk of banana in the tank gave me a good chuckle.

 

[jellopuddinpop]

I haven’t found a good pure potassium thing to dose

Grab yourself a jar of K2SO4 from Nilocg, greenleafaquariums, or some other planted tank store. It will be around $3 for a 1lb jar.

... Pseudomugils might be shrimp safe...

I read this as Pseudo-muggles. Kind of like Hermoine, half wizard, half muggle.

 

[Mr.PlantedTank]

I haven’t found a good pure potassium thing to dose

You should check out aquariumfertilizer.com. They have a good selection of dry ferts for a decent price.

 

[sbo80]

like a lot of hobbies there's only so much you can DIY. If you want a tank that requires supplements, there's just not much way around it. Pick less demanding plants and lower light so they aren't necessary, or pony up for feeding the plants. Dry ferts are one of the cheapest parts of a tank though, for how long a pound of K2SO4 lasts, it's far cheaper than fish food.