Iodide, Ioschmide... who knows anything?

[Europhyllia]

Last night I stayed up late to read up on Iodide/Iodine/etc.
Got tehre because of my LPS deaths and I read something about bacterial infections and how dipping helps LPS with bacterial infections but that Iodine dosing to the DT would be a good preventitive.
So I started thinking Iodide would be good. All of the stuff on shrimp and other things says they need it.
But the more I read the more confusing it got.
Iodine (like lugol's) could be antimicrobial and help with bacterial infections but unfortunately it can break up into dangerous compounds so that's out.
Iodide is already the compound and safe -but not very antimicrobial! :at_wits_end:
So given that it won't help prevent any bacterial stuff would it still be good to dose it?
Different manufacturers make different stuff and even the test kits test for different kinds of iodine compounds.
I read through 2 articles on Iodide on Advanced Aquarist just to know in the end that they don't know if it's good/bad/necessary either!
:bareteeth:
So does anybody have any opinion on iodide/iodine dosing in regular DTs (not as a coral dip) and what is your reasoning behind it?

For what it's worth I tried to get Seachem's Reef Iodide and didn't find it so I got Kent's Iodide. Will try it out for a bit until somebody posts that it destroyed their tank ;)

[BIGBIRD123]

Karin, I forgot to tell you this when we met today but you can also use Brightwell's Tissue Restore. It helps damaged corals.

[BIGBIRD123]

We use it after fragging and when a coral looks damaged.

[justahobby]

Isn't lugols both? It has Iodine potassium and iodide.. or mybe its iodide pottasium and iodine. I do know that iodi?e potassium is used by sps blues and purples and in cases of deficiency can help boost coloring. Knowing that you don't keep sps I don't think that will help you much. : (

[Europhyllia]

Toxicity and other properties of various forms of iodine

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 (http://www.lfscultures.com/p12.html) 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

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/chem.htm

[Europhyllia]

Most iodine supplements on the market are simply potassium iodide or a medicinal disinfectant commonly known as Lugol’s Solution. Lugol’s is a highly concentrated iodine/iodide solution that is highly toxic and intended for disinfection. Although such products are sold for use in reef aquaria, we believe the risks vastly outweigh the potential minor benefits.
Potassium iodide only products are a safer alternative but not very effective alone owing to the unstable nature of iodide in the aquarium environment. When added to an aquarium environment, iodide becomes unstable converting to elemental iodine (which is biocidal), iodate (which is useless to corals, toxic at elevated levels, and can't be tested for), and iodide which is the only form of iodine available to corals for uptake. These products' inherent instability makes them potentially dangerous to coral health.
Unlike competing products, Reef Iodide™ is complexed to a stabilizing compound in order to keep it in the iodide form when added to the aquarium. All of the product remains usable and fully bio-available.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/ReefIodide.html

[Europhyllia]

Karin, I forgot to tell you this when we met today but you can also use Brightwell's Tissue Restore. It helps damaged corals.
lol Steve you are adding to my things to read (EPA, DHA, etc.)! I wanted to make it easier on myself - not add more stuff to figure out. ;)

[justahobby]

Talk to Randy Holmes-Farley in RC's chemistry section. After reading seachem's "iodide is unsafe because xyz, but our product is safe....just because" makes me doubt anything they just said.

[Europhyllia]

Justin he's the author of the two Advanced Aquarist articles I just read (and quoted one above). On RC he basically said if you want to dose dose IODIDE- not lugol's, etc.
He doesn't see anything that indicates what it would do for most corals other than certain gorgonia.

[justahobby]

Oh, I meant ask him since you still had questions after you read it. His articles tend to be pretty complex and he speaks more in layman terms on RC.

[corydrysdale]

After reading Karin's quotes from the article, I now understand absolutely nothing!

[Europhyllia]

LOL. Exactly! And that's what I stayed up late for! To read these and know less than I knew before...

[wesheltonj]

I dose 2 cap fulls of Seachem a week, without problems.

[stoneroller]

I know my Xenia respond well to Iodide dosing. I use Brightwell's Iodion.

[Kristy]

LOL. Exactly! And that's what I stayed up late for! To read these and know less than I knew before...

Well... it's considered great wisdom to know what you don't know. So thanks to Karin, you have just made us all a bit wiser! :wink_smile: (Those articles were ROUGH reading!)

[ErikH]

All you need to dose is for CA Alk and Mg. O3 if you want to take care of bacteria.

If I can keep SPS anyone can. Got the ol PH up to 8.78 the other night, quite a scare. :)

[Europhyllia]

All you need to dose is for CA Alk and Mg. O3 if you want to take care of bacteria.

If I can keep SPS anyone can. Got the ol PH up to 8.78 the other night, quite a scare. :)
But we don't want to keep sps! I want to keep funny inverts and gorgonia! :bigsmile: