Math is not my strong point- I full well expect a correction on this post from Just Thinking tomorrow:) Anyway, here's my attempt~

ok, I remember from the early days of this forum someone calculating that there were approximately 600 drops in each oz of lugol's. Back then we were discussing 5% as 2% did not exist yet.

So I'm *guessing* that that Lugol's is a 5% formulation. Each drop of 5% Lugol's contains 6.25mg total iodine(ioDINE/ioDIDE).

1 drop per gallon of water is really a miniscule amount, I don't think you have any reason to fear "overdoing" it.

If you want to consume enough Lugol's to equal the dose of potassium iodide(130mg) that the feds recommend to protect the thyroid from radioactive iodine, then first of all, peruse the thread above on reducing Iodine to ioDIDE- you can just put it in orange juice.

According to my calculations, that would be approximately 21 drops lugol's(in OJ) for an adult, you can space that out during the day.

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FRom the back of my bottle of potassium iodide:

Adult dosage- 130mg

3 - 18 yrs, also pregnant, lactating women- 65 mg

1 mo- 3 yrs - 32 mg

birth - 1 mo 18 mg

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I have never been able to find out what grade lugol's the marine stuff is- my guess is that it's quite pure as salt water tanks/ reef tanks are quite an investment.

And as far as safe Iodine supplementation goes, on THIS forum many of us have taken dosages commonly thought of as being "unsafe"... and have nothing but good to report of the experience:)