Iodine?

ChiTownTy

moved this to the water chemistry section for you

Steve

I dont dose Iodine , I have dosed Iodide, on softy dominated set ups , but never noticed any benefit from it, so stopped

Steve

 

Iodine is contained in the salt mix and is supplementing is not needed, I would actually highly discourage it as it is the single most misused additive or supplement in the hobby. Its easy to overdose a system and get it out of balance and its tough to get it back to normal. Throw the iodine away or use it for dips but don't put it in your tank.

 

In addition to being already in your salt mix, every time you feed your tank you add iodine in one form or another. Most foods have some amount of an iodine form in them. (and being lucky as we all are, the foods also contain phosphates just naturally and some added)

 

Respectfully.........I do not believe any salt mix can adequately sustain Iodine in the amount needed for tanks requiring it. If someone does monthly water changes, depending also on how much they change out, the slight amount of Iodine in a few gallons of new water will not significantly raise the Iodine to bring it to proper saturation usable by the creatures requiring it and sustain this for a month until the next change. Smaller weekly changes will do even less. To further prove this, if water changes could raise Iodine levels to any significance, everyone should be testing for Iodine. Is everyone? No, hardly anyone is. Who mixes a batch of water and then tests their tank for Iodine and the batch to make sure they aren't overdosing?
To burst a myth believed by many, water changes have their place but in no way contribute to over all water quality as much as the biological filtration of the tank and sustaining the elements required by supplementation when needed.

 

Unclejed, you are in the minority with that opinion. I would like to hear your reasoning or rationale for your opinion if you don't mind, it would probably help all of us to understand why you seem to be going against the flow on everything we have been taught for the last 30+ years in the hobby.
Like many, I dosed iodine at one time many years ago and saw absolutely zero benefit so chose to discontinue its use. That plus I don't know of many inhabitants that actually benefit form levels of iodine higher than what is at what I would call background levels. Some will argue it benefits molting of shrimp and makes your zenia go wild but I never saw any difference myself.

 

I would be happy to discuss this. It is a matter of "total" health of the over-all aquarium environment. One doesn't have to "see" the benefits for them to be there. As far as being in the minority, no, I am in the 50% that tout the benefits as stated in the article to come here from Randy Holmes-Farley; http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/chem.htm
Now, Randy is well respected and is worth giving a read. As far as things taught for 30+ years, many once held "truths" have been dismissed in those 30+ years i.e Watts per gallon for lighting as the advent of LED technology along with T5 HO and VHO has changed the Watt per gallon formula. To each his own.

 

My lfs which deals in reef aquariums only told me no when I asked about dosing with it 3 years ago. So I don't use or even test for it.

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When you read Randys follow up article in Apr 2003 he recommends not dosing iodine as he see's no benefit to it although little research has gone on.

Then you read another article he did later in 2004-2005 and he again recommends not dosing iodine.
Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

I will stick with the not dosing camp as it is something hard to accurately test for and something very easy to overdose since there is little documented evidence showing either a demand or benefits from dosing it.

 

.... right ... and I'll stick with not dosing or doing water changes camp and still not having any issues with it...

IME, dosing any trace element (not the big 3) is a waste of time and money (outside of very specific scenarios).

So I utterly disagree with dosing iodide/iodine.

I also laugh pretty good about referring to the past 30 years. In fact, I'd say I have an advantage by not being jaded by what I was "taught" 30 years ago (I'm only 31). From what I see, the folks who have been in this hobby the longest are often the ones with the worst advise (N00Bs not withstanding). Advise often doesn't evolve with the times...

 

I find the opposite to be true.

This goes here because that is just plain silly.