Who doses Lugols and do you test for iodine?

[JG1]

Some people say it does nothing, some say their reds and blues are noticeably better while using it, others say that lugols is toxic to reef tanks.

Whats the real scoop?

I do dose Kents lugols, but at 1 drop four times a week. The bottle says 1 drop per 25g/weekly. I have a 110ish net system.

I don't test for iodine but considering getting a hanna checker for this.

 

[ct_vol]

I dose lugols, but it is not specifically for my SPS... Like you, I do not test therefor I don't add much, maybe 1 or 2 drops per week in a 300+ gallon system...

 

[kaserpick]

I dosed 1 drop everyday on my old 65g; the tank thrived. The only reason I took it down was AEFW's, a hard way to learn to dip and use a QT.

 

[allsps40]

I dose 1 drop daily on my 40B, I dont test. It helps with blues and purples as well as sps tissue lose. It also is good good for soft corals.

 

[Fieroguy19]

I was dosing lugols for months at 2 drops per week in about 100g and never saw and real difference until I accidentally dosed about 10 drops all at once. Within 2 days my blue milli got much more vibrant blue so now I dose a little more than before but am currently trying to find the right amount. I do not test since I haven't heard of any of the tests working well.

 

[JG1]

Also, what brand are you guys using? I think some lugols solutions may be more potent than others because different brands recommend different doses per water volume.

I use Kent which suggests 1 drop per 25 gallons/week

 

[lowman31]

I dose lugols at the suggested dose once a week in my 400 net gallon system and don't measure. I do it for the corals and to help my chaeto thrive. As to a color difference: I am not sure if it makes a difference. I know macro algae take up a lot of iodine so thats why I replace it.

 

[Paul B]

I have been dosing Lugols for many years about 15 drops a week in a 100 gallon tank. I am not sure if it does anything

 

[JG1]

I have been dosing Lugols for many years about 15 drops a week in a 100 gallon tank. I am not sure if it does anything

What brand?

 

[Allmost]

I dose pottasium iodine, and JOB from KZ.

my test, is my blue colors. specially on SPS. I dose when they fade, and stop when color comes back.

it has better effect than just iodine for me, and it only works in nutrition low environment.

interesting info here if interested : http://www.springerlink.com/content/h023q7258833w685/

 

[yuzaki]

How do you make a potassium iodide solution?

I sell high grade potassium iodide and iodine in kgs in my country.

to my knowledge lugol's is basically a combination of potassium iodide and tincture of iodine. what percentage in solution i do not know and want to know.

 

[dzhuo]

I have been dosing Lugols for many years about 15 drops a week in a 100 gallon tank. I am not sure if it does anything

Most likely the effect is very minimal or non-existing since most marine animals such as corals are incapable of using iodine from the water. Here is a quote from Dr. Ron Shimek:

Such worms [He's referring to the Enteropneust worms] are relatively common in the sand flats around coral reefs, and are one type of animal that seems to be impossible for reef aquarists to get. They are animals that REALLY would help a sand bed in a reef tank. They are burrowing sand swallowers and are an evolutionary "half-way house" (aka "un-missing link") on the way to chordates (we'uns) from some other, possibly, wormy ancestor. They have (hundreds) of gill slits in the pharynx or throat that correspond to the gill slits in the feeding region (branchial basket) of tunicates. The gill slits also are homologous to the gill slits of fishes. They are one of the few animals in marine ecosystems that actually could use the iodine that most aquarists carelessly and foolishly dump into their systems. "

For people who have success using iodine for better coloration, I suspect either it's just a false perception (I put X into my tank so there must be a cause and effect) or there might be other chemicals in various commercial iodine solutions that cause the color change (similar to what we still don't know exactly what kills Bryopsis with Tech-M).

 

[Paul B]

The Lugols I have is "Integra" I bought a pint of it about 20 years ago.
I know what Dr Shimek says about it but I do not agree with him on this.

 

[dzhuo]

I know what Dr Shimek says about it but I do not agree with him on this.

Why not? Are there good evidence certain animals will benefit from iodine?

 

[JG1]

I wonder if all "Lugols" solutions are the same concentration, or do they differ. The is a wide variation of dosage instructions depending on which brand it is. I would think it would be all the same concentration since they all use the term, lugols.

 

[Allmost]

Why not? Are there good evidence certain animals will benefit from iodine?

well the link I posted does.

 

[Paul B]

Why not? Are there good evidence certain animals will benefit from iodine?

I know some animals such as shrimp have iodine in their tissues so I would imagine they need it for something. Seaweeds also have iodine and it is present in seawater. I would assume it is also in corals but I am just guessing. We as humans need it but that does not mean much. I doubt anyone did any experiments keeping the animals for a couple of years with no Iodine but being that it is cheap and in seawater, I add it.
After decades of dosing it, I have not seen anything dying so how bad can it be?

 

[dzhuo]

There is no question lots of animals use iodine (one form or another), the question is whether the concentration in your tank isn't already sufficient for grow and what benefit does it bring with elevated level. The second question is whether corals we keep can benefit from additional iodine and if so, how. As mentioned earlier, most animals can't benefit from iodine directly from the water column. The fact that virtually all living tissue contains iodine don't mean much. For example, lots of living tissues contains phosphate, ammonia and heavy metal, does that mean dosing phosphate, ammonia, copper and various heavy metal isn't harmful? When shrimps and crabs molt, they also expel excess iodine accumulated via food because elevated level of iodine is legal. For example, Lugols is basically a combination of iodide(I-) and iodine (I2) and I- has been long known as antibacterial agent for decades. Although how this translate to our tank is still somewhat unknown, it's still a possibility that the risk of adding such chemical out weights the benefit (if any):

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iodine in Marine Aquaria: Part I

The various forms of iodine have very different chemical properties, and they should not be confused with each other. In addition to the three forms mentioned above, aquarists also frequently encounter molecular iodine (I2). Lugols’ solution, for example, contains a mixture of I2 and I-. It is the I2 form in particular that is the basis for the widespread belief that iodine is “toxic.” The I2 form, and that form in combination with other forms, it is a potent antibacterial agent that has long been used for disinfection. The naturally occurring inorganic forms (iodide and iodate) have little in the way of antimicrobial activity.12 Even a 30,000 ppm solution of iodide (240 mM or half a million times more concentrated than in normal seawater) is only weakly antibacterial13 In mixtures containing I2 and other forms, it is the amount of free I2 that is important for antimicrobial activity.14

In terms of toxicity to higher organisms, the concerns vary considerably from organism to organism. Still, these general trends seem to hold. Rainbow trout, for example, are quite sensitive to I2, with the LC50 (the concentration where half of them die) below 1 ppm iodine. They are not very sensitive to I- or IO3-, with the LC50 for these species being greater than 200 and 850 ppm respectively.15,16 Daphnia magna were equally sensitive to I2 (LC50 less than 0.2 ppm) and I- (LC50 less than 0.2 ppm), but were less sensitive to IO3- (LC50 above 10 ppm ) .15

Unfortunately, there is not very much toxicity data available for any of these iodine species on marine organisms. Aquarists are left not knowing exactly how high the iodide and iodate levels can get before becoming problematic. Phytoplankton growth is apparently not inhibited at iodate levels up to 1.3 ppm iodine (iodide, which they made from the iodate was also presumably high).17 These authors concluded “there is little interaction between iodine processing and the metabolic activity of cell growth.” Several species of phytoplankton were shown to be uninhibited by iodide and iodate at greater than 12 ppm, though iodide (but not iodate) began to inhibit one species (C. antiqua) at levels below about 0.13 ppm.18

The second major issue is most people aren't aware they are already adding significant iodine to their tank everyday:

Of the foods provided to most marine aquaria, algae in fish food is likely to be a big source. Gracilaria sp. macroalgae are often added to tanks, both in commercial prepared foods (e.g., some of the Formula foods from Ocean Nutrition, which also includes additional inorganic iodide), and as an individual macroalgae for fish (e.g., Tang Heaven). In one study, Gracilaria sp. was found to contain 3654 ppm iodine by dry weight.27 So the daily input to a tank adding 3 grams (dry weight) of Gracilaria sp. per day is about 11 mg of iodine. That is enough to bring a 50-gallon tank from zero to natural levels (0.06 ppm iodine) EVERY DAY. In the end, I think that we should be very happy that iodine is depleted so rapidly, because if it were not, we’d probably rapidly drive up iodine levels in many tanks.

Here is the second article Randy wrote about iodine for those who are interested:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iodine In Reef Tanks 2: Effects On Macroalgae Growth

I am certainly not against iodine, I just want to caution people who decided to use it and knows its limitation and risk.

 

[dzhuo]

well the link I posted does.

Yes I have read that article too. The study is performed by a group of scientists from Taiwan. The main focus of the study is on diatom which I am not certain has any direction implication on corals we keep.

 

[Allmost]

I guess you are not really looking for new info ...