Trace Elements and Additives

[allwilli]

I am new to the hobby. I inherited a fish only tank some months ago and have been adding live rock, corals and inverts. I recently added a yellow leathe coral and fox coral to me tank. The guy at the LFS said I needed to supplement them with iodine so I picked up a bottle of Kent Marine Tech-I. I have been using EcoSystem's Reef Solution and have seen a marked improvement since using that product (which by the way includes Iodine). Do I need to add the additional iodine as well? I called EcoSystem and they were less than helpful. Although my tank is established the bio-load is rather light:

20 Gal
single clownfish
4 hermits 7 snails
Banded Coral Shrimp
1 lawnmower blenny
1 blue damsel
the above mentioned corals
Medium size frogspawn
Feather duster
BTA (approx 5- 6" dia.)


Thanks

[thrlride]

the best thing to do would be to take some of your water to the LFS for testing or buy an iodine test kit. That's the best advice I can offer.

[thrlride]

Double post.

[reefgal]

For a twenty gallon tank, this is NOT a light bioload. You will be surprised at how quickly the corals you have will outgrow your tank.

As for additives...if you aren't testing for it, don't add it. There is a lot of iodine in fishfood. There is also iodine being added every time you do a water change on your tank. Iodine supplements are hotly debated on this board. I don't believe in ANY additives except calcium and alkalinity supplements. I believe the rest are a waste of money and potentially harmful to the animals.

[H@rry]

I would not add *ANY* additive to my tanks unless I tested and found a deficiency. Like reefgal said, iodine is not something we need to try to add. I test for calcium, alk, strontium, magenisium, and boron. I did a lot of research to determine what is required for a reef tank and these are the trace elements that I found are needed. In my testing I found that I have sufficient magnesium and boron. The only thing I have to add is strontium and sometimes calcium (I have calcium reactors but sometimes they don't keep up with the calcium requirements). Check out Randy's chemistry forum for more insight on additives. There are people out there just waiting to sell you more snake oil for your tanks. Everything you need should be in your salt mix if you do regular water changes.

[allwilli]

Thank you for the comments. This can be a pretty confusing hobby what with all the personal preferences involved. The information I get varies from LFS to LFS. Thanks again for the advice.

[H@rry]

Your LFS may be your worst source of information! They hire kids off the street! Are they wanting to sell you anything?

Again, don't put *ANYTHING* in your tank unless you have tested for it and found it lacking!

[FMJeff]

Don't knock supplements...if you go a while without a water change for whatever reason it might be good to dose just to tie you over until you get a chance to do one...i konw ive been so busy lately to do a water change, its been about a month since i've done one, and i find the supplements buy me a good week or so...im gonna do one tommorow in fact...lol...

[derick]

Originally posted by FMJeff
Don't knock supplements...if you go a while without a water change for whatever reason it might be good to dose just to tie you over until you get a chance to do one...i konw ive been so busy lately to do a water change, its been about a month since i've done one, and i find the supplements buy me a good week or so...im gonna do one tommorow in fact...lol...

NO NO NO

Never put anything in your tank except calcium supplements

Do not add Iodine Strontium or any supplements like that.

Assays of tank water show that it has too many trace elements not too few. Check on the work by Ron Shimek

[aquajames]

I purchased many supplements in the past per the recommendation by LFS. Quite often when I add some supplements I noticed some corals and clams retracted right after. Instead of taking this serious, I used to continue adding them.

I think some coral losses in the past had something to do with those supplements. Even Iodine is, I believe, greatly exagerated. LFS would scare me that with Iodine lacking my shrimp and crab will be deformed after molting. one or two legs missing or worse.

My lesson is BE VERY CAREFUL WITH SUPPLEMENTS. Many reefers that I know seem to be doing fine without any supplements whatsoever. The only exception I must mention however is Calcium as other members mentioned already. This is why I use Kalkwasser dripping with great result.

James

[SAT]

I'm with reefgal and the others in the minimal supplement camp. I supplement Ca/Alk and (yeah, I know this is wierd) silicate. I have test kits for those and a bunch of others. If you want to supplement something, I strongly suggest buying a test kit for it first. No test kit, no supplement. With most of these elements, having too much is a lot worse than not having enough.

[derick]

Assays of tank water show that most tanks have too much Iodine, strontium and other trace elements.

Shrimp molt to get rid of iodine, then don't need it to molt.

Do some searches for iodine on Dr Shimek's forum.

Derick