Iodine

It's a perfect place to post.  Iodine is still in debate so there is no right answer yet.  You will get anecdotal and opinionated responses.  I am no exception.

 

It's my opinion that it would take more than a minor overdose to affect Zoanthids.  On the other hand, there is a very fine line between a minor and a major overdose.

 

Salt mixes can actually cause a minor overdose temporarily.  I've never seen a real issue with this on corals.  The ony time I've seen issues is with Shrimp when Iodine was dosed right after a large water change. 

In my opinion - None of the commonly kept corals benefit health wise from the presence or absence of Iodine.

If you are interested in iodine think you should test for it and track the ppm
I have use the Seachem Multitest and it is hard to read
I have use the Red Sea Pro and it is a little easyer to read but you only get readings of 0.00, .003, 0.06, or 0.09

Quoted from CR Brightwell's "Marine Chemistry":

 

"Iodine may very well be one of the most important elements present in a reef aquarium; it's concentration is usually a limiting factor in the rate of metabolism and growth of fishes and invertebrates.  Without a sufficient concentration of iodine in the water, fishes will often develop goiter, crustaceans will not molt, certain types of macroalgae will not survive, soft corals will gradually die, corals in general will show poorly (iodide affects pigmentation) Xenia and Anthelia won't thrive and may die back, and the list continues.  Iodide may be very important to hermatypic invertebrates as a means to help detoxify excess oxygen produced by their symbiotic zooxanthellae under supraoptimal light.... It's important to note that overdosing (iodine) can have disastrous effects on an aquarium system; an overdose of iodine can kill beneficial bacteria and destroy sensitive tissue, leading to the rapid demise of the system's inhabitants...elevated iodine concentration in the presence of other required nutrients can encourage the rapid growth of cyanobacterial sheets...A range of 0.05 to 0.08 mg/L of ionic iodine is acceptable for both fish-only and reef systems...Should there be a need to rapidly decrease the concentration of iodine in a marine aquarium, there is no faster way that with one of the aquarium supplements formulated to detoxify chlorine, chloramines, and ammonia..."

 

Good info

 

Agree with Bang.... I the Brightwell is full of it!!!  There hasn't been any real proof about Xenia and Iodine.  People try to link their pulsing and lack of pulsing due to Iodine.

Brightwell stated it correctly with the frequent use of the word "may". 

May????? Again just as you mentioned no real evidence...I wouldn't hang my hat on "may".  Maybe test and see what your levels are???

I have never really seen any linking of iodine and pulsing but what is known is that xenia contains a high level of iodine. I guess the debate is can the xenia get the needed iodine without supplementation

There are a few questions there.  Can Xenia get Iodine from microalgae that is often found trapped inside a residual gut?  Can Xenia even adsorb Iodine from the water? Does Xenia even need Iodine?  Which ion of Iodine can Xenia use if any is actually needed? 

Since you don't have any real evidence that it is not need why are you so prejudges against the idea of someone finding out if it is? As of late there has been some non-scientific tests that show cheto to grow 9% faster with Iodine dosing. And many of the respected people that have in the past stated there is no benefit to dosing iodine are now modifying there stance to say that some algae take up iodine but we don't know if it is any benefit to the algae....

If we don't look we will never know.
Edited by GeoJ - 1/27/12 at 4:55pm

I do know for a fact that many types of algae take up Iodine.  I have no question on that from my own experiments.  I can believe it would grow faster if the Iodine made it less palatable to herbivores.  That is definately believable.

The test was preformed to prove that there was no benefit to dosing Iodine. 4 testing tanks were setup with the exact same lighting and flow. The test was on Chetomorpha and I believe some kind of Caulerpa in species specific tanks. Multiple samples were placed in each tank 4-5 I don't recall. They used a control set that was not dosed and the dosed set. They then dried and weighed the content of each tank and compared them. The cheto w/iodine dosing weighed 9% more then without. The Caulerpa weighed more but not significantly. The test is not up to a publishable scientific stander, but I think if they had found no difference they would had yelled it from the mountain tops.

For me I see no reason to change what I am doing. I hope others contribute there experiences, as I feel there is more to learn and only time will tell if Iodine is need or not.

That is an interesting test.  I equate it to dosing chickens with antibiotics.  They grow significantly faster and bigger with antibiotics.  That's how you get a 7 pound chicken that looks like a small turkey.

 

I'll leave it to the readers if they think the chicken need the antibiotics and if they are healthier since they grow so much faster.

Not prejudges, but for a company to make such a claim and have nothing "really concrete" to support the idea or their "statements".  The idea of iodine being needed has been around forever and has been debated, and as Bang pointed out how much is to much.......What affects does it have on the rest of the system as well.......

 

Not against the idea or practice, but some of the iodine test kits are lacking and don't test for all the components as well....