I have started to dose a lugols solution once a week per the manufacturers instructions. I have a very healthy growth of soft corals and clams with xenia in a 125 gallon. My tap water is awesome for marine aquariums and I let it stand for 24 hours or more before using as top off. My only other additive is a little pickling lime once in a while to the top off. Cheaper than kalkwasser. Truth is, everyone is a bit different based on their local water chemistry, what they do to their water, and what their bio loads need are. You cannot sit here and make a claim or statement and expect it to be useful to anyone outside their specific locality, and their aquariums specific biological needs based on quantity and species. I myself am doing very well without a water change after 2.5 years. I have been very fortunate with my local water for top offs regarding mineral content. My local water is hard, 10.5, and has many minerals in it from the Rockies. I replace salt as needed and top off water every three days. I would not expect others to be anywhere near what I am doing unless they were local. If someone tests their Iodine, what are they going to tell you. Is there a chart that shows Iodine and corals specific needs that you can refer too? I've got a huge library of reef and coral books by all the greats. There are no charts, no great font of knowledge that refers to any of the trace elements in specific quantities based on any specific species. BECAUSE THEY DON"T KNOW! What value are you supposed to test for? How much of it do they use? Truth is we have no values for anything. We have some base generalities for some broad groups of corals and clams. Got alot of hard corals, sps and lps, and clams well you might want to keep your specific hardness and alkalinity on the up and up. But when it comes to specifics. Nobody has any figures you can nail. How could they? What size tank do you have? What species do you have and what are their specific god for saken requriements down to the milligrams per hour under a certain type of lighting? How big is your tank, and what is your water turnover? How many overall species do you have and how big is the biomass? You cannot give specifics and you cannot ask someone to test their levels of Iodine. What good is it going to do you to know? If I tell you I have a 125 gallon tank and I tested my Iodine level to be at a set number of milligrams would you be excited? Would that information be suddenly useful to you? I have a 125 gallon tank EricM and my tank is probably totally different from yours. My species and bioload and their needs are not the same as yours. I probably get all I need from my top off. But my Xenia seem to be benefitting from the additive. The more acidic your local water the more likely you will need to use some kind of supplement. If you use RO water, well you take most everything out you have to put some things back. But what? Think the salt does everything? Can you narrow down some specifics? Who has some? What chemistry with trace elements can you quantify? Ricksreef, your as bad as the guy who is putting the **** in as you who does nothing. You both don't know and your both probably doing just fine. The truth is the more you take out the more you have to think about putting something back in. There is a grain of truth to the hobby when someone says, Xenia needs Iodine and it's not just one or two people. Maybe your water has a good supply of Iodine... Did YOU check? Are your corals having trouble because they didn't get their weekly dose? Probably not because your dead set against it.
Once again. Water chemistry is a complicated affair based on many different things. Your corals requirements for their maximum health is largely unknown and there are no scientific specifics measured in any marine hobby literature giving specific uptakes on a given length of time.
Each and every person unless they are from the same locality is going to be different. Different local water and what they do with it. Different animals and their specific needs. Different sized aquariums and their bioload. Imagine a huge tank full of nothing but Xenia. You cannot jump on someone for their statements if they are doing well. You cannot project your experiences on someone else unless you both are sustaining aquariums under similar conditions and bioloads with different results. You without supplements, they with supplements, You the winner, they the loser.
You cannot offer your advice because you are doing well unless you KNOW what someone else is doing wrong given a specific situation most likely becuase YOU personally have done the same thing and learned from your mistake. I haven't changed my water for 2.5 years now. Do you think someone crying about that is going to stop me? It isn't stopping my corals or clams. Do I jump on people who change their water? NO. I don't use RO water for any reason. Do I jump on people who do? NO. Maybe their water is just that bad that they have too. They are succeeding aren't they? Do I jump on people who use additives? No. I started using Lugols over a month ago because my Xenia population is getting rather large. The truth is there are many ways to go about all the tasks necessary to achieve great success in this hobby. We do not need to point fingers at those who are succeeding in ways not attune to our own. And we definately need to help our brothers and sisters in need when they ask a given question, with facts that are available to us from learned personal experience, or that experience which was given to us by our fellow brethren.
Despite the drunken tone of this post I do not personally recommend or not recommend dosing with Iodine or any other trace element. This is a complicated question with many factors involved in the overall conditions that might lead to the necessity of using a product to bolster a certain element or two depending upon what and how many species you are trying to maintain in a given volume of water and how often and with what kind of water and volume you use as a replacement thereof. Chances are for many of you top off water will do just fine. If your doing well, don't change a thing. With or without additives. Read up on and know every species of coral you are maintaining to best of your ability and make changes accordingly. As your corals grow and spread, they will require more food. More trace elements. More care. There is more potential knowledge in this forum than in most of the books that can be aquired. Many of the people here are experts in their field and they don't know it. Ask questions. Listen to all sides. As you gain in experience you will be able to relate and know when someone is giving information that matters.
Tallinu
