Iodine additive and how important

[darrowj]

I am fairly new at the hobby. During the last meeting I borrowed the book Getting Into Mini-Reefs by Jim Fatherree. I just finished reading it and saw in a number of places that he recommends Iodine supplements for soft corals.

Within the last few months I got some Xenia, Green Star and Mushroom soft corals. They all seem to be doing great. However, I want to be a good host/owner of these sea creatures and give them what they need to be heathy.

Ever since the day a couple years ago when I added some Ich Medicine, according to directions, that killed all my fish (another story for another time) I'm gun shame about adding anything to my tank except salt, water and the occasional PH buffer. How important is it to add Iodine?

 

[NateHanson]

Your instincts are good. Add as few things to your tank as possible. I'd trust regular water changes to keep up with any iodine demands.

If you're curious, get an iodine test kit, and see if you need to raise the level to meet what Fatheree recommends. Then add to get there. But don't add anything blindly without testing for it's level in the water.

 

[~Flighty~]

Also look for the Randy holmes-farley iodine article. He goes through some of the chemistry to explain that iodine levels aren't as simple as a single number and that supplementation may not be the best plan.

Here is a link with the articles listed under iodine
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102605

 

[reefkeeper2]

I have to say (learned through experience) that if your going to keep gorgonians, you must supplement iodine or do water changes sufficient to keep iodine at NSW levels. Also, there are a few threads recently on RC about keeping non photosynthetic softies and iodine is required for their husbandry as well. I think a good rule of thumb is that if it's found in natural seawater, it should be found in your tank. You should not supplement anything though without testing for it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I personally have seen no convincing evidence that any of the organisms that most folks keep need supplemental iodine. I've not seen a single person who had an established reef tank who used iodine, and then stopped without changing anything else note any difference at all. That's really the only evidence that would convince me, aside from side by side experiments which no one does. Too many people make many changes at once trying to fix problems, and when the problem does disappear, they do not actually know which change (if any) solved the problem. But they sometimes assume it was one or all of them, and report that to the community that then passes it along as an important thing to do.

OTOH, many of us did just that (stop iodine after long use) and saw no differences. I dosed it for years, then suddenly stopped many years ago. Not a single thing changed.

That said, it is certainly possible that some unusual organisms may benefit from it. If you feel more comfortable using it, some small doses of iodide are very unlikely to be a problem as algae takes it up fairly quickly and depletes it from reef aquaria.

 

[Base]

I am a rookie reefer and do not fully understand all of the chemistry involved. But I dose iodine once a month. I've noticed that within 24 hours most of my inverts with exoskeletons molt.
what I would like to know is, are the inverts benefiting from induced molting or is it better to let them molt when they would naturally.

 

[reefkeeper2]

I did stop using iodine. For quite some time actually. Then I started to lose my gorgonians one by one. Those I had left would not open up. I did not connect this with lack of iodine and was perplexed as to what could be wrong. Then I sent my water out to be tested by AWT. When the results came back, there were a few surprises one of which was a 0reading for iodine. Then I tested with a salifert kit and also got a 0 reading. Clearly my water changes were not keeping iodine at NSW levels. Then I wondered about the gorgs. So I decided to try dosing. The effects were immediate and dramatic.
They (just 2 left) all opened up. First time in months. I posted what had happened here at the time.Greg cautioned me on coming to conclusions on such slim and circumstantial evidence and I agreed with him. There is a lot of this in the hobby. Something else could have been the cause. So I decided to repeat the "experiment". I stopped dosing. After a few weeks the gorgs all closed and would not open. Then I dosed with 2 drops of lugols every day.This gave me a normal iodine level on my Salifert kit.Again after 3 days all the gorgs opened up.
I know this is not a controlled scientific experiment, and it's still possible some other factor could be at work. This is however the best that I can do. Perhaps all the conflicting evidence on this subject is do to the varied populations of animals in our tanks. Some might need that iodine and others might not. Anyway, IMHO keeping iodine at NSW levels is best for my tank.

 

[NateHanson]

I dose iodine once a month. I've noticed that within 24 hours most of my inverts with exoskeletons molt.
what I would like to know is, are the inverts benefiting from induced molting or is it better to let them molt when they would naturally.

That's a good question, and I don't really know. I'd tend to think that letting them molt on their own would be better. I've noticed that shrimp and crabs usually molt when you first add them to a tank. I suspect it's a response to stress of some sort during the move. Or perhaps the temperature drop during transport, and subsequent rise triggers it. I don't know, but they seem to do fine with it, and they also do a fine job molting on their own during their subsequent lifetimes in the tank. So I guess it's probably not really a big deal what you do either way.

Out of curiousity, do you do anything else at the same time as your monthly iodine dosing? Like is that when you do your water change? Do you dose other things at the same time as you dose the iodine? Do you add a weeks worth of top-off water at roughly the same time as the iodine?

 

[darrowj]

BRS is such a great resource

Thanks for the feedback everyone. After asking a couple questions like this I do not know how I took part in this hobby without this great resource.

I do water changes once a week religiously. After killing as much live stock as I have over the course of the past couple years I find it helps more than anything else. Ever since I started doing that I have not had a fish death.

I can keep fish alive and presumably happy. Now with a move to soft corals I want to do the same. I bought a small bottle of Iodine supplement from Petco ($7) today. I'll try it out in smallish doses and see what happens. I do not have a way to test though which causes me concern. I need to figure that out as well.

 

[Base]

Out of curiousity, do you do anything else at the same time as your monthly iodine dosing? Like is that when you do your water change? Do you dose other things at the same time as you dose the iodine? Do you add a weeks worth of top-off water at roughly the same time as the iodine?[/QUOTE]

I dose rather infrequently (without any real schedule).
Not when I do water changes (i think water change increases trace elements by itself).
I do not dose anything else at the same time.
I add about three galllons topoff every day.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Then I started to lose my gorgonians one by one.

What type of gorgonians? There are some gorgonians that are among the few marine organisms known to actually use iodine, but I did not think anyone kept the type known to use it. Maybe other types use it as well. If, as suspected below, it is used to make an antipredatory compound, perhaps you had some sort of predator that bothered the gorgonions when you did not dose iodine.



From my article:

Who uses iodine: Gorgonia and antipatharian corals (black coral)

Another set of creatures of the deep that use iodine are certain gorgonia, such as Plexaura flexuosa.42 They have 3,5-diiodotyrosine in their bodies, to the tune of 0.1 to 2.6% of the total dry weight as iodine. This iodoamino acid is presumably incorporated into proteins in the skeleton (stem), but the benefit is unclear. Again, it may be largely an antipredatory effect that is desired. The iodine incorporation in gorgonia seems to increase with age.43,44 The proteins of many different gorgonia species contain substantial iodine: Eunicella otenocalloides 6.5-8.9% by weight%, Gorgonia verrucosa 4.2-9.0, G. lamarcki 3.3-6.8, G. scirpearia 0.4-0.6, Rhipidigorgia flabellum 0.6-1.1, Euplexora maghrebensis 0.19-0.23, and Plexaura kukenthali 1.9-2.2.44 It has also been demonstrated that at least one gorgonia (E. verrucosa) takes up iodine in the form of inorganic iodine from the water column.45

One study showed that the organoiodine compound thyroxine, and some related compounds, are localized to certain parts of the gorgonia L. virgulata.46 Most interestingly, one of the places it is localized to are scleroblasts (spicule-forming cells) and on the spicules themselves. Further, the addition of thyroxine to these cells impacted the uptake of calcium, and it is suggested that the thyroxine functions in spicule formation.

The antipatharian corals (the black corals) also seem to incorporate a lot of iodine. The basal regions of these corals are especially loaded with iodine, with more than 23% iodine by dry weight recorded in two species.43, 45 Again, the specific purpose is not known.

 

[reefkeeper2]

Randy,you could be entirely correct. One gorgonian is commonly known as the purple sea rod, the other is called the purple sea whip. I will have to look them up for proper I.D, as this was the name the LFS called them and could be in error. I had a couple of sea rods, and they actually melted away,so the part about calcium uptake and spicule formation makes sense. The other simply would not open and became covered with algae.
Darrowj, invest in a test kit. It is unwise to dose blind, and you might not even need to dose at all. And in regards to monthly dosing, that promotes a yo-yo effect with the element you are adding. High at certain times and low at others. It's best to make a schedule and keep to it of daily or weekly dosing. Remember stability is the key to success with a reef.

 

[darrowj]

Test kit

I test for the simple things weekly (PH, AM, NI, and NA). UNtil a couple months ago I kept a fish only tank. I realize I need to invest in a better test kit. Right now and for the forseeable future I'm only going to try hardy soft corals. It seems at that most folks lean against iodine supplements. I agree that consist parameters means a heathly tank. Most of my tank problems start when I try and fix something that is not broken.

 

[Leroy]

I dose Tropic Marine Iodine every day for the past year, 1 drop per 50 gallons, 2 drops for a 90 gal w/ 30 refugium. My Purple Gorgonia has been multiplying branches beyond control, Red Sea Xenia and regular Xenia are out of control and growing all over the back of the glass, mushrooms are multiplying and are 4" in diameter and another 90 gallon with softies that are full with life. Only issue I ever had to deal with was treating Cyano when upgrading to all new lighting.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, but the question is whether all of those same things would still be happening if you did not dose iodine. I am quite certain that many of them would happen just fine, and they do for many of us who do not dose iodine.

 

[phaedraeos]

I'm going to resurrect this thread, and ask if anyone recommends either the Salifert or the Seachem iodine/iodide test kits? I know Salifert is usually the mantra, but with a difference of $20 between the two kits I thought I'd ask . . .

 

[reefkeeper2]

I use the Salifert. I have not tried another so I can't give you a comparison, but I'm happy with it.