Will potassium iodide affect Pomacanthus sp. fish?

[tedo_4]

Hello everyone. I work with a saltwater aquarium with a bunch of fish but recently some of the bamboo sharks developed goiter. I have had success in treating that in other sharks with potassium iodide by putting it in their food. However, these bamboo sharks refuse to eat (we even tried coating their food with garlic oil, no result). They are currently put in a separate quarantine tank so more attention can be payed to them. This tank, however, is part of a system consisting of three tanks linked to a single sump and one of them houses a new Pomacanthus fish which is still going through it's initial quarantine period. My question is - if i were to dose the potassium iodide in the water instead of giving it with the food, would that harm the Pomacanthus in any way? It still has to be quarantined for about a week more.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello everyone. I work with a saltwater aquarium with a bunch of fish but recently some of the bamboo sharks developed goiter. I have had success in treating that in other sharks with potassium iodide by putting it in their food. However, these bamboo sharks refuse to eat (we even tried coating their food with garlic oil, no result). They are currently put in a separate quarantine tank so more attention can be payed to them. This tank, however, is part of a system consisting of three tanks linked to a single sump and one of them houses a new Pomacanthus fish which is still going through it's initial quarantine period. My question is - if i were to dose the potassium iodide in the water instead of giving it with the food, would that harm the Pomacanthus in any way? It still has to be quarantined for about a week more.

Safer would be using General cure which is also safe for sharks. Potassium iodide becomes unstable in tank by converting to elemental iodine. Is it safe for angel, should be but i'd rather not attempt

 

[MnFish1]

Hello everyone. I work with a saltwater aquarium with a bunch of fish but recently some of the bamboo sharks developed goiter. I have had success in treating that in other sharks with potassium iodide by putting it in their food. However, these bamboo sharks refuse to eat (we even tried coating their food with garlic oil, no result). They are currently put in a separate quarantine tank so more attention can be payed to them. This tank, however, is part of a system consisting of three tanks linked to a single sump and one of them houses a new Pomacanthus fish which is still going through it's initial quarantine period. My question is - if i were to dose the potassium iodide in the water instead of giving it with the food, would that harm the Pomacanthus in any way? It still has to be quarantined for about a week more.

If you added enough potassium iodide to the tank to treat goiter, you would likely run into problems. General cure - would also not cure goiter - but I'm curious - how are you diagnosing goiter?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello everyone. I work with a saltwater aquarium with a bunch of fish but recently some of the bamboo sharks developed goiter. I have had success in treating that in other sharks with potassium iodide by putting it in their food. However, these bamboo sharks refuse to eat (we even tried coating their food with garlic oil, no result). They are currently put in a separate quarantine tank so more attention can be payed to them. This tank, however, is part of a system consisting of three tanks linked to a single sump and one of them houses a new Pomacanthus fish which is still going through it's initial quarantine period. My question is - if i were to dose the potassium iodide in the water instead of giving it with the food, would that harm the Pomacanthus in any way? It still has to be quarantined for about a week more.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

It depends really, on the dose of KI that you plan to use. If you go much above natural seawater levels, you could run into toxicity issues, but otherwise it is not a problem....however:

To be honest, I have NEVER had KI additions to the water ever work in treating goiter in sharks, it really needs to be in the food - dosed at 2.5 mg per pound of fish weight weekly for five weeks. Can you work on why the sharks aren't eating? You could force-feed them, but that won't fix the reason why they are not eating. Here is an article I posted here on force-feeding fish:

Tube / Force Feeding Fish

This article describes methods of tube-feeding and force-feeding fish

www.reef2reef.com

I have had some limited benefit seen by adding L-thyroxine to the water to treat goiter in sharks that weren't eating, but in some cases, the goiter was too severe and it never resolved.

Some people say that adding elemental iodine "Lugol's solution) works, but it is more reactive and can be toxic if overdosed.

Jay

 

[tedo_4]

If you added enough potassium iodide to the tank to treat goiter, you would likely run into problems. General cure - would also not cure goiter - but I'm curious - how are you diagnosing goiter?

Well, I thought this is the case due to the obvious bulge in the ventral neck area (we saw one of the sharks a bit late and it has a very large bulge). These signs have turned out to be goiter in the previous cases i have had and goiter treatment worked by inserting iodide in the food. As of right now, only the shark with very bad bulge refuses to eat.

 

[MnFish1]

Well, I thought this is the case due to the obvious bulge in the ventral neck area (we saw one of the sharks a bit late and it has a very large bulge). These signs have turned out to be goiter in the previous cases i have had and goiter treatment worked by inserting iodide in the food. As of right now, only the shark with very bad bulge refuses to eat.

Check out this article - which might help.