Iodine & Essential Elements??

[txrunning1]

I have read somewhere that I shoule add iodine to my 75gal reef (lr, dsb, xenia, etc.) Is this true, and how much should I add? Also, when I bought the tank the guy gave me a bottle of Kent's Essential Elements. What are these and are they necessary? Thanks for you help.
PS - I do add calcium everyday.

 

[mlm]

Some say that Iodine is very beneficial to soft corals. Others say that Iodine could have detrimental effects. Others say that the salt has enough iodine in it. I guess it is a personal choice.

 

[alianated]

I heard an interesting explanation once...
Take it with a grain of salt, but the person who I was talking to was really knowledgable on the whole KENT vs blah vs blah vs Reef Solutions stuff.
'If we were kept in one room. And it was possible to test what we had in the room. There would be lots of things in there. We would find waste (no bathroom) and C02 and all that jazz along with the good stuff like oxygen and food. These would probably all be considered 'trace elements' to some degree. But not all of them would be good for us.'
Apparently, iodine still has not really been figured out. Its something that is definitely in the ocean but no one knows if it is truely a good thing or not.
It DOES make your mushrooms spread like weeds. I do know that. But Vicodin makes me love the world and wanna procreate too... sure doesnt mean I should have a dose of it daily.
Personally I only add iodine as it comes in Reef Solutions. By this Im not saying use reef solutions, Im just saying that I use a 'trace element' checmical that includes iodine instead of dosing pure iodine into the tank. At least that way, its a bunch of elements as opposed to just one. (Even pure oxygen can cause problems to a person) So I just keep it diluted.
hth

 

[captained]

If I remember this correctly- Essential Elements contains, iron, iodine, strontium, magnesium and molybdenum- all of which you can get seperately from Kent. Things that molt (shrimp) need iodine, iron is good for macro algae and supposedly the zooanthella in corals, strontuim and molybdenum are also beneficial to corals, and magnesium helps buffer your alkalinity. All of this stuff is usually in salt mixes, but you might want higher levels depending on the consumers in your tank, and some of it gets stripped out through skimming and certainly by carbon.
I generally add about half the suggested dose of each to my tank on a weekly basis. There are other lines out there as well- NutraSea from Customsealife looks interesting since it contains other viatamins (like C) as well as one that provides spirulina and other stuff for filter feeders.
I don't know about Vicodin, but if my fish would feel as mellow as I do after the breakfast

[hr]
, that could be a thought. Ya know what they say..."better living through chemistry" so why not for the fish?

 

[burnnspy]

I add kalk and aragamilk to my 2yr old reef and its perfect so far.
BurnNSpy