dosing iodine?

[cathyg_99]

how often do you dose iodine?

[asylumdown]

I don't

read a lengthy article once on the amount of iodine that's added to our tanks just through feeding (especially pellets), the complex and untestable nature of all the different kinds of iodine that can be in water (some good, some bad, some totally neutral) and figured I'd save myself the extra test kits and supplement costs.

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I don't

read a lengthy article once on the amount of iodine that's added to our tanks just through feeding (especially pellets), the complex and untestable nature of all the different kinds of iodine that can be in water (some good, some bad, some totally neutral) and figured I'd save myself the extra test kits and supplement costs.

+1

The jury is out on iodine. Some say it can cause real problems and that nothing in our tanks actually need it. If the experts can't agree, I don't see the point.

- Brad

[ScubaSteve]

I have gone with and without dosing iodine. I find my shrimp molt more regularly and easily with iodine dosing than without. I've also found that some of my SPS colonies lose colour and look unhappy when I stop. Start dosing again and then pop right back. I dose 1 drop of lugol's every three days or so into my 40G.

I agree with the above statements that the jury is out on dosing. I do what works for me.

[cwatkins]

I put a few drops in every week of Lougals.

But heck, just leave a window open and soon your tank should get a good dose of Japanese nuclear iodine

[whatcaneyedo]

After dosing Lugol's weekly for several years I stopped back in December. So far nothing has changed.

[George]

I don't dose iodine. Randy Holmes-farley is strongly against dosing iodine because of inaccurate test kit and potential dangerous of overdosing. I trust Randy on chemistry more than any "experts" out there because a. he has a Phd in chemistry and b. he is not associated with any of reef/marine product companies.

here are two of his articles on iodine:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/3/chemistry
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/4/chemistry

And if you don't have time to read the articles, here is a quote from his article:
"
I would strongly advise people to not try to maintain 0.06 ppm iodine using supplementation and a test kit.
Why you ask? Isn’t that what we do for most other chemicals of interest? Well, if we could easily and accurately determine the concentrations of the different forms of iodine in aquaria, then I would recommend doing just that. However, if you combine the complexities of having multiple iodine species present with the uncertainty of having hobbyists use very complex test kits that may readily yield incorrect or difficult to interpret results, the stage is set for people driving their total iodine to levels far from what they actually intended. I do not know what levels of iodide or iodate become apparently problematic to real aquaria, but the risk of overdosing in this fashion is not insignificant. Both of the ICP studies reported above found some tanks with substantially elevated total iodine levels. I have no way of knowing how those levels got there, but overdosing of a supplement is one likely way.
"

[chris88]

I dose it and i have found it helped a lot with color in sps tissue.