Iodine question

[Sophie"s mom]

I have a question for anyone who knows. I have never dealt with the need for it in my old tank from years ago. But now with inverts and corals, I have a need. My test kit is Salifert. So my question is which am I testing for, iodide, or iodate? And what results am I looking for? I tested both. Iodate was 0.06, and iodide was less than 0.01. What is a good goal / additive? Thanks in advance to all

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are you dosing anything?

I never found iodide useful and consider its use as an experiment in any given tank. Lots of the claims about iodine have no real basis in fact.

Iodide is the form generally taken up by algae and other organisms. The ocean has substantially more iodate than iodide, but iodide is usually in the 0.01 to 0.02 ppm range.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Are you dosing anything?

I never found iodide useful and consider its use as an experiment in any given tank. Lots of the claims about iodine have no real basis in fact.

Iodide is the form generally taken up by algae and other organisms. The ocean has substantially more iodate than iodide, but iodide is usually in the 0.01 to 0.02 ppm range.

Thank you very much Randy, the reason I ask is I read that crabs need iodine when molting, so I wanted to see where mine stands. Do you know if this is true or not?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you very much Randy, the reason I ask is I read that crabs need iodine when molting, so I wanted to see where mine stands. Do you know if this is true or not?

I do not believe there is any convincing evidence of that. The same is said in the hobby about shrimp, but the shrimp aquaculture industry has no such myths or dosing.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

I do not believe there is any convincing evidence of that. The same is said in the hobby about shrimp, but the shrimp aquaculture industry has no such myths or dosing.

Good to hear and yeah that’s what I thought because my cleaner shrimp molts like a pro!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

That said, there’s also nothing wrong with dosing iodide to natural levels.