Protein Skimmers

[izzie]

I read somewhere that when ur using a protein skimmer that for some inhabitants u have to dose the tank with iodine. Im going to have LR and then a damsel to start. Will i need to dose my tank with iodine. Ill be doing 1 or 2 10% water changes a week. Also read somewhere that that will replenish the nutrients. What is the correct way to do it or any of ur opinions on how to do it. This will be taking place in a 10 g nano tank. thanks.
izzie

 

[Lynden]

Shrimp and other crustaceans need iodine for shedding properly, although i dont use it and my coral banded shrimp is shedding fine. Also, i believe you need it for stoney corals, as well as soft corals and polyps. Your type of tank is a "nano reef", and nano LR is usually specialized and will generally need supplements. As for changing the water, if you use tap water and then remove the heavy metals and chlorine with a dechlorinator, this task can be reduced (supplements i mean). If you are using RO or ion exchanged water, it will completely lack any and all minerals. Good luck on the tank!


-Lynden

 

[steelhealr]

Izzie..in general, the best thing to dose your tank with is WATER CHANGES. If you use a good salt mix, doing weekly 10% water changes is all you need for now. My advice about dosing it this: walk to the front of your tank, then take five steps backward. How is it doing? If your tank is doing well, adding excess minerals and trace elements without proper testing is going to do more to hurt your tank than anything. ESPECIALLY when there is barely anything in it on startup. DON"T JUST TREAT NUMBERS.

When your tank is six months old and stocked with corals, then, perhaps you can look at fine tuning things. EG, your calcium requirements can be a lot different with a tank filled with SPS coral vs softies. On the otherhand, when coralline algae takes off, that can use up calcium in a tank without SPS. Bottomline, go slow. It's not time to think about dosing a tank...focus on startup, aquascaping and developing good water husbandry technique. SH

 

[parker313]

Ditto to SH.

I haven't dosed my tank with anything. Once you start dosing with different chemicals, you can throw off the balance that's already been established if you're dosing something that's not needed or something that something else is dependent on. I took the "wait and see" approach to see if there was a problem that I needed to address rather than try and fix something that wasn't broken.

I strongly recommend getting RO water for top-offs as tap water is likely to have high phosphates which will lead to an algae bloom.

 

[Lynden]

I dont use supplements, nor do i plan on them in the future. I strongly agree with SH and parker313 on the supplements bit.