Additive Question

[firefish2020]

Dosing Kalk has started to help with my Alk and Ca. However unlike my Reef Complete Ca additive which also has a balance of strontium and magnesium I am afraid I will have problems. Do you think that regular water changes every other week will be enough to maintain the need? I know you don’t really add anything Bruce, but does anyone else have any opinions on this at all? Oh by the way just tested my iodine and I have 0! Iodine. I know everything I read says iodine is needed in soft coral but I have 2 tanks here with 0 iodine in them somehow. Some softies do seem like they may be affected by this Im not sure. I'll test my makeup water for iodine levels next time to see what it contains and see how fast it's being absorbed.

[essop3]

Mag should be fine with water changes. I've never heard of problems with strontium and couldn't find any helpful info. I'd test now and see how you maintain those levels on both.

You crazy kids with your sps....

[MattG]

i dont think any additives are needed besides calcium/alk as long as regular water changes are performed. If i was too check anything else it would be magnesium (i dont because my calcium reactor adds it).

As far as your iodine problem.... iodine is a tough thing to measure in our tanks. The forms we see in are tanks are molecular iodine, iodate, and iodide. If these arent all measured by your test kit then your test can 'appear' low.

I personally dont see any reason to dose iodine in our tanks if you are doing regular water changes. The only marine organism i have ever seen scientific proof of that benefits from raised iodine levels is macro algae. Until i see proof that other marine organisms benefit from higher iodine levels i will not dose.

[coralreefer]

You shouldn't have any problems Ron. I made the same switch a couple of years ago. Regular water changes should keep everything in balance.
Truthfully I've wondered how much trace additives the Seachem products added any way.

If i was too check anything else it would be magnesium

Me too but as long as you're not having trouble maintaining CA I'd bet it is OK. At least that's my theory since I don't have a test kit for MG :D

IMO Matt's dead on about the Iodine :thumbsup:

[firefish2020]

Yeh I think along the same lines on iodine, I have seen far to many outbreaks of algae that I can say were caused by someone overdosing iodine. Just the 0 kind of freaked me out LOL. It's a seachem iodine/iodide test thats all I can tell you about it. Thanks for the advice again :)

[MattG]

Heres an excerpt from one of RHF's iodine articles :D
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/chem.htm

"The Seachem iodine kit detects only iodide (I-) and molecular iodine (I2). It is unlikely that there will be much I2 in an aquarium as it quickly breaks down into other products59 [to be described in a later article that will include a discussion on using products that contain I2, such as Lugols solution]. A potential drawback to this kit is that it doesn’t detect iodate. So if your tank water matches normal seawater in quantity and speciation of iodine, then it will look artificially low (say, about 0.01 or 0.02 ppm). I would also not advise using this kit if you are adding an iodine supplement that contains considerable amounts of iodate, molecular iodine (that may break down into products that include iodate and iodide)59, or organic iodine forms"