Special notice for Aussie Crabbers...

[Mim]

Hi All,
Just a note for us aussies... If anyone feed their crabs bread, they should stop now... The government has now decided that all bakeries in Australia must add iodine to bread....

Just a little heads up...

[Jadexox]

iodine has been proved safe on another forum

[Wai]

Not in excessively high amounts. High amounts of anything can be potentially harmful and this includes iodine and its derivatives. In the case of iodine, I doubt the toxicity threshold is high. Which forum posted proof?

[Mim]

It has been stated that most aussies lack iodine, so they are putting in bread, 30% of our recommended intake... I think that this amount could be harmful?? (Considering the size of hermies to the size of us....)

[Wai]

I have no idea... a scientist would have to conduct a high quality clinical trial on land hermit crabs to test that out. However, the chances of that happening any time soon is unlikely.

[Jadexox]

this is the link
http://crabstreetjournal.com/xoops/modu ... 30&forum=7

I would only give them food with small amounts of it

[Wai]

Oh, I've seen that thread. Both table salt and natural sea salt consist primarily of sodium chloride, which is a harmless compound. Many years ago, many crabbers argued against the exposure of table salt to hermit crabs on the basis that it contained sodium chloride, which is nonsense, since sea salt consists mostly of sodium chloride too. It would be logical to think that the ingredients found only in table salt were the culprit; thus anti-caking agents come to mind. Iodide salts are found in sea salt too in low quantities. I think there are studies with results that suggest high amounts of iodine are harmful to some marine crustaceans such as lobsters. Highly concentrated solutions of sodium chloride in water however, can damage the gills of land hermit crabs.