Which iodine product for use with a doser?

[Lylelovett]

Hi all,

I'm going to start dosing iodine. I use GHL's Doser. Is there a specific iodine dosing product that is recommend for or just works better when using an automatic doser?

Thanks!

 

[Smite]

Usually the amounts are so small. I have a dropper and dose 6-8 drops daily depending on my ICP results. I feel like a doser might be a little risky at suck small amounts.

 

[Lylelovett]

Usually the amounts are so small. I have a dropper and dose 6-8 drops daily depending on my ICP results. I feel like a doser might be a little risky at suck small amounts.

This is my first foray into iodine dosing... is it imperative to have stable iodine levels, like you do with Alk? For example, if I miss a day here and there with dosing these few drops, is it a big deal? Or is it better to be dosing something than nothing?

 

[Mastiffsrule]

I would not recommend adding iodine thru a doser. Too risky for an overdose no matter how confident you are in your dosers it is not worth it.

I would also ask why are you dosing iodine. There is not much to be gained a water change cannot accomplish unless you are testing on your own and an advanced aquarist.

Check out the Iodine section from Randy’s article. It may help.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

 

[Smite]

This is my first foray into iodine dosing... is it imperative to have stable iodine levels, like you do with Alk? For example, if I miss a day here and there with dosing these few drops, is it a big deal? Or is it better to be dosing something than nothing?

It depends on who you ask and what you are keeping. I track all of my elements through the reef moonshiner program. That includes ATI ICP test followed by adjustments.
Iodine is part of the daily dosage regimens in the program. Iodine is not something I would blind dose aka dise without trustworthy testing.
I keep a acropora dominant reef. Before the shiner method I was doing water changes with TM salt amd had several bottomed out essential trace elements. Now my salt money goes to ICP tests and dosing elements. Never done better!

 

[Mastiffsrule]

It depends on who you ask and what you are keeping. I track all of my elements through the reef moonshiner program. That includes ATI ICP test followed by adjustments.
Iodine is part of the daily dosage regimens in the program. Iodine is not something I would blind dose aka dise without trustworthy testing.
I keep a acropora dominant reef. Before the shiner method I was doing water changes with TM salt amd had several bottomed out essential trace elements. Now my salt money goes to ICP tests and dosing elements. Never done better!

I have not come across that yet, need to check it out. Sounds interesting.

I have some big colonies of acros that do well with supplements. I should have mentioned what works for me is Aquavitro Fuel. Using a vitamin/amino acid along with dosing will help maintain your trace elements.

 

[Smite]

Very nice! It’s funny how all tanks are different like that. I dose daily cobalt, chromium, manganese, iron, vanadium and rubidium. I also dose bright wells coral aminos and love that.

OP. If you have tested low know that carbon can pull your iodine levels down too from what I’ve read

 

[vetteguy53081]

Manual dose only as VERY LITTLE is needed

 

[Harold999]

I noticed that If you combat dino's, and therefore doing no waterchanges and run constantly active carbon, your iodine will completely go zero within a month. I guess dino's consume it plus the carbon removes it.
Just for anybodies information.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IME, iodine dosing was not useful. I dosed it for years assuming it was useful, then stopped and detected no changes. There's also no evidence in the scientific literature that most corals need iodine. My actual growth studies did not demonstrate a need for it by macroalgae, and as far as I know, I am the only person ever to publish a study to see if macroalgae need supplemental iodine.

It is fine to dose it as long as you dose reasonable levels, but I would caution folks to do it as an experiment and look for a benefit, rather than just doing it because someone else said it was useful.

Iodine is rapidly depleted from most reef aquaria (including mine, but not in all) if only because algae are known to take it up, and some algae species (especially brown algae species) take up a lot.


Iodine dosing is cheap and easy to do. I recommend dosing iodide, either as sodium or potassium iodide.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

plus the carbon removes it.
Just for anybodies information.

Have you measured that? It's not true. It's a widely circulated bit of chemical misunderstanding that gets repeated endlessly. The forms of iodine in seawater (iodide and iodate) do not appreciably bind to GAC in seawater.

The ultimate source of the repeated misinformation is that the "iodine number" is a gauge of the surface area of activated carbon as the iodine binds to the activated carbon surfaces. That is a different form of iodine (I2) binding to GAC in pure water. I2, as an uncharged and relatively hydrophobic molecule does bind to gac, while iodide and iodate are simple ions in solution that compete with all other ions (chloride, sulfate, bromide, etc.) in seawater for the very few ionic binding sites on GAC.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

OP. If you have tested low know that carbon can pull your iodine levels down too from what I’ve read

While that is commonly claimed by nonchemists, I do not believe it is true for the primary forms found in seawater (iodide and iodate). See above posts.

 

[Harold999]

Have you measured that? It's not true. It's a widely circulated bit of chemical misunderstanding that gets repeated endlessly. The forms of iodine in seawater (iodide and iodate) do not appreciably bind to GAC in seawater.

The ultimate source of the repeated misinformation is that the "iodine number" is a gauge of the surface area of activated carbon as the iodine binds to the activated carbon surfaces. That is a different form of iodine (I2) binding to GAC in pure water. I2, as an uncharged and relatively hydrophobic molecule does bind to gac, while iodide and iodate are simple ions in solution that compete with all other ions (chloride, sulfate, bromide, etc.) in seawater for the very few ionic binding sites on GAC.

Yes, tested it (Salifert).

BUT, i just tested a bucket of freshly made new salt water and still getting a zero reading! Or the test is rubbish or my salt. To be continued...

 

[Lylelovett]

IME, iodine dosing was not useful. I dosed it for years assuming it was useful, then stopped and detected no changes. There's also no evidence in the scientific literature that most corals need iodine. My actual growth studies did not demonstrate a need for it by macroalgae, and as far as I know, I am the only person ever to publish a study to see if macroalgae need supplemental iodine.

It is fine to dose it as long as you dose reasonable levels, but I would caution folks to do it as an experiment and look for a benefit, rather than just doing it because someone else said it was useful.

Iodine is rapidly depleted from most reef aquaria (including mine, but not in all) if only because algae are known to take it up, and some algae species (especially brown algae species) take up a lot.


Iodine dosing is cheap and easy to do. I recommend dosing iodide, either as sodium or potassium iodide.

Understood. I'll test my parameters and see if it seems like it needs it, then play around a bit - albeit carefully. Thanks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes, tested it (Salifert).

BUT, i just tested a bucket of freshly made new salt water and still getting a zero reading! Or the test is rubbish or my salt. To be continued...

What I was asking is if you have actually measured that GAC binds iodide or iodate, not that it disappears from your system (which it will for other reasons).

 

[Harold999]

What I was asking is if you have actually measured that GAC binds iodide or iodate

No, local lfs said that dino's consume iodine and nitrates (also other elements like iron), so i assumed that if you have dino's and don't do any waterchanges, the values will bottom out.

Just checked if the Salifert testkit is okay by the way. Bought a bottle of Redsea iodine+, added a mil to the freshly made bucket where i initially tested zero iodine, and did a retest. Now i measure iodine so the testkit is fine.

So the salt i normally use (Aquaforest reef) doesn't contain iodine. Nice. :-(

 

[Smite]

While that is commonly claimed by nonchemists, I do not believe it is true for the primary forms found in seawater (iodide and iodate). See above posts.

I was talking with someone about the amount of iodine (iodide actually) I dose daily because it seemed high but my levels are always on the lower end of the recommendation. They mentioned it can happen from GAC use. Good to know that is not the case and just a matter of uptake in my system. I was a little concerned the levels would increase without GAC.
Thanks for the correction and clarification!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was talking with someone about the amount of iodine (iodide actually) I dose daily because it seemed high but my levels are always on the lower end of the recommendation. They mentioned it can happen from GAC use. Good to know that is not the case and just a matter of uptake in my system. I was a little concerned the levels would increase without GAC.
Thanks for the correction and clarification!

In my studies, many years ago, dosed iodide dropped from natural seawater levels (~0.06 ppm) to less than detectable (less than 0.02 ppm) in less than a week.

More recently, many years after I had stopped dosing any supplemental iodide, I had an ICP test down that showed 0.022 ppm of iodine. I don't know what form(s) that was, but that residual level may be sufficient to supply organism needs (if any) in my tank and perhaps was why I did not see any change on stopping any supplementation.

At that time, I used both GAC and macroalgae growth (and multiple other filtration methods), but that level of iodine remained. Presumably foods were the source.

 

[Harold999]

Just checked if the Salifert testkit is okay by the way. Bought a bottle of Redsea iodine+, added a mil to the freshly made bucket where i initially tested zero iodine, and did a retest. Now i measure iodine so the testkit is fine.

So the salt i normally use (Aquaforest reef) doesn't contain iodine. Nice. :-(

This needs some more investigation though because the results the Salifert testkit is showing versus the dosing prescription on the Redsea bottle don't match.
I will need basically add 10 times more iodine+ than Redsea says on the bottle to see a matching result on the testkit. dang.

 

[MnFish1]

This is my first foray into iodine dosing... is it imperative to have stable iodine levels, like you do with Alk? For example, if I miss a day here and there with dosing these few drops, is it a big deal? Or is it better to be dosing something than nothing?

I have never checked an iodine level - let alone dosed it. Is there a reason you're thinking you need to?