Liquid Kelp (Iodine from North Atlantic Kelp)

[ZoWhat]

Some one school me on if this would be a good supplement for Zoanthids and Palys in small droplets.

Maybe 1 or 2 droplets in a 180g system per day

 

[GHOSTLY]

Now you see. You could probably get similar if not better results with phyto. Personally I'm not sure

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It usefully adds iodine, but I do not know if iodine has any benefit. I never found it did.

 

[ZoWhat]

It usefully adds iodine, but I do not know if iodine has any benefit. I never found it did.

You've for a long time have stood by the fact that zoas palys really don't do much with iodine that breaks up into iodide and iodate in the water column.

Yet any major zoa collector doses iodine and points to iodine as 1 of possibly the top 5 things to keeps zoas growing. Many go on to describe that iodide>iodide gets dosed to help with zia tissues. Without supplemental dosing iodine>iodide levels get stripped out by skimming.

Just wondering why you take this position


.

 

[arking_mark]

You've for a long time have stood by the fact that zoas palys really don't do much with iodine that breaks up into iodide and iodate in the water column.

Yet any major zoa collector doses iodine and points to iodine as 1 of possibly the top 5 things to keeps zoas growing. Many go on to describe that iodide>iodide gets dosed to help with zia tissues. Without supplemental dosing iodine>iodide levels get stripped out by skimming.

Just wondering why you take this position


.

I've read similar claims. However, most of these are based on anecdotal evidence. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but I'm not sure anyone has scientifically shown it to be beneficial. Also, adding Iodine to maintain natural sea levels isn't harmful. So if adding Iodine seems to improve your Zoas...go for it.

 

[ZoWhat]

Well... ran my first Seachem Iodide test

I've been dosing Seachem Iodide liquid at a clip of 10ml per night for a 220g'ish total water system with a tank dominated by zoas/palys.

I've got to have 1000+ polyps among 10-15 different species of zoas palys

Mt test results still show a slightly low concentration of Iodide at 0.03mg/L .... which NSW is around 0.06mg/L

I guess I'll start dosing 20ml of the SeaChem each night along with this Liquid Kelp [ingredients listed above].... and test DAILY.... until I see Iodide reach closer to 0.08 to 0.1.... but not to exceed 0.1

Guess my 1000+ polyps suck the iodide up like a kid eats ice cream....

Here's hoping my 0.1mg/L goal doesn't kill all my fish




.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You've for a long time have stood by the fact that zoas palys really don't do much with iodine that breaks up into iodide and iodate in the water column.

Yet any major zoa collector doses iodine and points to iodine as 1 of possibly the top 5 things to keeps zoas growing. Many go on to describe that iodide>iodide gets dosed to help with zia tissues. Without supplemental dosing iodine>iodide levels get stripped out by skimming.

Just wondering why you take this position


.

Skimming? Iodide and iodate cannot be directly skimmed out. Why do you think they can be? Iodine is certainly incorporated into algae and some other organisms, possibly including skimmable whole microorganisms.

I do not rule out that supplemental "iodine" dosing has many effects, because people dose all sorts of different thangs that contain iodine, but may have effects for reasons unrelated to the iodine content. Lugols impacting trace elements, for example, by oxidizing them and changing their solubility and bioavailability. Someone "proving" that Lugols impacts their aquarium leaves unknown whether it has anything to do with the iodine or not. Same general idea would apply to the kelp product here since it contains lots of stuff.

I also do not rule out that iodine is useful for a small number of organisms, and that might extend to zooanthids, but my "expectation" is that it doesn't.

My position on iodine in general is for these reasons:

1. Many people, myself included, dosed iodine for years, and saw no difference when stopping. Perhaps normal foods suppy any "needed" iodine in these cases.
2. A variety of marine organisms have a scientifically known and published requirement for iodine (I detail what was known at the time in one of my iodine articles), but that does not include zooanthids. A quick search just now also didn't find any new data on this topic for zooanthids.
3. I have never seen any side by side experiment showing supplemental iodine has a clear benefit to most organisms we keep, even by hobbyists.
4. I haven't even seen clear cause and effect experiments in a single tank. That would involve no dosing for a while, stabilize the tank, then dose a purified iodide or iodate chemical and report the actual effect. Keep dosing for a while, let it stabilize, then stop the dosing and see if the initial effect disappeared. That level of experiment would help convince me, but is very rarely done. Most often folks just claim it helps (or not).
5. Cause and effect is far harder to demonstrate than most folks think. One or two or a dozen anecdotes do not do so. Zooanthid growers doing so is not convincing. it is cheaper to dose than test to see if it is working. Note how much controversy there currently is over whether the Biogen alzheimer's drug actually works. Showing something works is hard and time consuming and costly, and folks in the hobby very rarely do it.

That all said, dioine dosing is easy,a nd I typically recommend that folks try it for themselves if they aere interested,a nd jsut look with an unbiased eye to see if they "like" the effects (if any). if they do, there's little reason to not continue.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Guess my 1000+ polyps suck the iodide up like a kid eats ice cream....

They certainly might. Taking something up and needing/benefitting from it are different. Algae takes up a lot of iodine (something in my tank stripped NSW levels to almost none in a few days), but algae (chaeto and caulerpa racemosa) does not need it to grow (I tested algae growth with and without supplement iodine in controlled tests.

 

[N.Sreefer]

A lil off track but this post really makes me wonder how much iodine is passed by tangs/any fish that are fed kelp. Wouldn't that be the easiest way to supplement just feed the fish in the tank kelp? Doubt they absorb all of it but I guess it would be hard to control the dosing. I'm assuming your fish would be okay dosing that extract because I feed kelp to my fish daily.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A lil off track but this post really makes me wonder how much iodine is passed by tangs/any fish that are fed kelp. Wouldn't that be the easiest way to supplement just feed the fish in the tank kelp? Doubt they absorb all of it but I guess it would be hard to control the dosing. I'm assuming your fish would be okay dosing that extract because I feed kelp to my fish daily.

Since for the last 10 years of my reef tank, I added no iodine supplements and my ICP showed 0.021 ppm, I expect foods were the source.