high lithium levels -- no iodine

[CTaylor]

Hi,

I just got the results back from my Triton test analysis of my reef tank. It tests for many elements such as boron, mercury (bad guys).. and others like iodine, and LITHIUM. My tank is 3.5x higher than 'recommended'.

*Is this reason to worry? My tank is NOT doing too well, again. So this is why I had the water analyzed

**Additionally, the Iodine is **1/20 th of recommended! .... I do use a calcium reactor for my continuous 'dosing'. So my corals should be getting what they need... I thought.
**Also I apparently have no Iodine related elements in my tank -- no vanadium, no Vanadium (V), no Manganse (Mn), No Zinc (Zn) -- ug/ul, and no cromium, copper, or iron.

**I have a mixed reef -- of what hasnt died. Of LPS and SPS. Only softy I have is star polyps, which is doing great, even with no I . My hammers are doing the best. The SPS is doing horrible -- acros -dead, porites -- on xmas rock doing well for some reason, the other dead, stylo -- dead, some others dead.

Thanks for any direction :)

[ilyad]

When you set up the tank, did you use BRS dry rock by any chance? Also, what brand salt water are you using?

My personal experience was that the BRS dry rock I put into the system (to avoid any hitchhikers) can actually leech stuff into the water. I had high Lithium and even metals. Also had annoying calcification issues. LPS were doing OK, softies fine, couldn't keep SPS for the life of me. Tank was almost 1 year old at that point and I barely had any speck of coraline algae as well.

I ended up swapping the rock to cured rock (Real Reef) and almost instantly started noticing a change. A few weeks later, and a few water changes, the SPS started to get new growth and better coloration.

Also, as a side note, I was informed that IO salt tends to run a little higher on the Lithium range, but shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Please keep in mind that I am not 100% confident that the rock is for sure an issue, but I saw noticeable changes once swapped. Could have been just a coincidence.

[CTaylor]

Hi Ilyad,
I actualy changed out all my live rock a few months ago. I had basic live rock, fiji and base rock. I had the same problem then with corals not doing good. I changed out to 100% Life Rock. The corals are doing better overall (the LPS mainly). But I changed it because of other reasons --- they were not branchy like my new rock is -- and they were super porous in a bad way where fine caulerpa infested it like crazy.
Anyhow it could be now that the new rock coincidentally is leaching the Lithium -- I have apparently no other heavy metals. Though I think the Li is from my tap water, just a hunch. Of course its RO/Di in the end.
I'm zeroing in more on the near zero Iodine. I'm sure my salt mix has it. WHich I'll test when I get the test kit. Assuming that, then something in the tank needs it -- maybe all the corals. And since I dont add it, there's none now. Apparently just feeding the tank my frozen food doesnt "dose" iodine like some people say. At least my food doesnt.

[ilyad]

Its possible that the new rock may be leeching a bit. For most rock that subsides and water changes resolve the issue, but other rock (like mine) kept up for over a year like that. Since yours is fairly new, Id suggest keeping up as per normal water change schedule but add the following:
- Poly-Filter (this does wonders at pulling out unwanted stuff from your tank)
- Lugol's solution (I would supplement at half the recommended dose and test periodically until you find the "stable dosage") Careful with Iodine as too much of it can really mess things up.

As for salt having Iodine, most does have trace amounts of it, but if you dont change the water frequently enough, it can get depleted faster than you can supply it back in.

Hope this helps.

[CTaylor]

*is iodine required by even SPS corals? from my limited research, I can't tell. But I would think it's required by the soft part of the coral, and therefore softies require more. If it is then this must be my main issue since I have zippo :-D

[bertoni]

The high lithium level and low iodine level are fairly common. Lithium allegedly comes from our salt products, which have a fair amount as a contaminant. It's not harmful at the levels in our tanks.

Iodine doesn't seem to be required by the animals that we keep:

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

I dosed iodine for a while. When I stopped, I saw no difference. A lot of other people have had the same experience.

The trace element testing by Triton seems to have accuracy problems in general. There is some reading available if you're interested. I wouldn't worry about the results you got.

[CTaylor]

ok.. thanks bertoni.
so now I guess i'm back to square one. I cant figure out what's wrong with my tank.. for the past several years, was hoping this was going to shed light. ONly thing left is something not being able to be tested for coming through my tap water not being filtered effectively by my RO DI.

[bertoni]

What's happening in the tank? Do the stony corals die suddenly, or fade over time? Could you post a picture? I think hammer corals can produce "sweeper" tentacles to sting and kill neighbors. Maybe that's an issue.

[reefkeeper2]

You need iodine if you want to keep gorgonians. I've dosed it for years because I've always had gorgs in my tank.

[bertoni]

I kept a gorgonian for years without dosing iodine. What kind or kinds are you keeping?

[reefkeeper2]

I've had many kinds over the years, including a caribbean sea fan which you can't get easily anymore because of their protected status. I found over and over that when a gorg wasn't looking well or wouldn't extend it's polyps, supplemental iodine would solve the problem.

[bertoni]

Well, in my experience, purple blade and the common encrusting gorgonians do not require iodine. I can't be sure about every species in the world.

[reefkeeper2]

LOl, in my experience purple blade reacted the most favorably to iodine supplementation. I remember having this very discussion with Randy years ago and I used my experience with the purple blade to make my point. It would take a controlled experiment to give us the truth I guess.