Dosing vitamin c PROS/CONS >.<

[Rob&Gab]

my girlfriend has been dosing the tanks with 1 tablet of vitaminC everyday at night time is this bad? i do no it lowers PH. Can anyone give me some sight on how this works. 1Tablet is 500mg. and its going in a 65GRR tank before she was doing it to the 45before we upgraded.

The PROS/ CONS about doing this. Thank you so much for your help!>.<

 

[cpayne015]

I dose vitamin c every 3 days as its good for their immune system

 

[Rob&Gab]

but shes dosing every day. i dont no if its good or not.

 

[Dylan J.]

This is something I've written up in my local forum about VC

Hope this gives some insight.

Vitamin C Dosing

 

[Djtonton]

i have been dosing 2 times a day small amounts and i see great growth in my zoas


i followed thid 656 page thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/zo...vitamin-c-dosing-zoanthids-i-am-clueless.html


im using this stuff:

VITAMIN C DOSING CHART
Here are the directions:
Use this product:
NutriBiotic, Sodium Ascorbate, Crystalline Powder, 16 oz (454 g) - iHerb.com FREE SHIPPING!!!
$10 off 1st order of $40 & up or $5 off on smaller orders, when using this code: LUL789


To figure out how much to use, decide if you want to simply improve coral growth, spread, and color. If so, then you should dose around 5 ppm twice daily (down to 2-3 ppm works also). If you are having problems with coral or fish health, dose up to around 30 ppm twice daily.

Calculate the total net number of gallons in your tank (minus rocks, sand, etc). Enter that number here ______.

You will now need to do a little math. The amounts below are for 100 gallons of water so if you have 50 net gallons, cut the amounts shown below in half etc.

Dosing amounts using I-herb product:
1/4 tsp=1112 mg.

For every 100 gallons:

5 ppm ----- 1892 mg VC
10 ppm ---- 3785 mg VC
15 ppm ---- 5677 mg VC
20 ppm ---- 7570 mg VC
25 ppm ---- 9462 mg VC
30 ppm ---- 11355 mg VC

After you have figured out how much you want to dose at each dosing, enter that number here _____. This is your dose to be used twice a day.

Notes:
*Be sure your pH and alk are within normal reef limits before starting. Adjust if needed. Monitor weekly.
*Shoot for a ppm of around 5 or lower if only dosing for improved coral growth, coloration, and spread, also for better health/coloration of your fish. Shoot for higher amounts up to 30 ppm if you are having melting zoas or closed zoas and look for the causes of your problems as you dose. Higher doses of as much as 100ppm (for about 2 weeks) for fish illness. Check for high nitrates, pests, zoa pox, predators, and unstable water conditions.
*Dose low amounts and increase the amount slowly over the course of a few days to a couple weeks.
* If you notice an algae bloom (white stringy stuff) or increased scum on your glass then cut back by half until it disappears.
* Watch your skimmer, it will start to skim more.
* Dose the amount twice a day in a fast moving area of your sump or overflow. You may dilute the vitamin c in ro/di water then pour into overflow. If adding to sump, try and add the vitamin c after filtration such as skimmers and reactors. *Keep your Vitamin C bottle in the refrigerator. * If you have a question, ask here. I do my best to check these threads daily.
* The instructions in this guide and throughout this thread are based on using pure Sodium Ascorbate, not vitamin c pills and other non-buffered forms of vitamin c.

Be sure to take some "before" pics!

 

[rosshamsandwich]

any updates

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Vitamin C will act as a carbon source (like vinegar, vodka, etc.).

Vitamin C will lower ORP substantially. That ORP lowering likely will alter the speciation of trace metals. For example, how much iron is present as Fe++ (ferrous iron) and Fe+++ (ferric iron). I do not think we know what effects that has, good or bad (or none significant).

I know that some folks were very strong proponents a few years back (like when the linked thread started in 2008), but some/much of that was before folks understood and frequently dosed other organics and understood the effects that would have.

I tried it once and didn't notice any effects. I don't think that folks generally see the big benefits that some folks claimed (maybe still do) and not that many people use it today.

That said, it is easy to experiment with if you want to try for yourself.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

Thank you kindly you are awesome

 

[John3]

If you dose higher amounts daily you should see a drop in nitrates. You could easily drop them to zero if you don’t watch them. That could lead to starving your corals. That’s the major con I see.

I dosed it for about a month and I do believe I saw some positive effects in healing a couple fish that beat on each other and I saw some good growth in zoas while on it.

I stopped as I went too far and lost all nitrates.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

If you dose higher amounts daily you should see a drop in nitrates. You could easily drop them to zero if you don’t watch them. That could lead to starving your corals. That’s the major con I see.

I dosed it for about a month and I do believe I saw some positive effects in healing a couple fish that beat on each other and I saw some good growth in zoas while on it.

I stopped as I went too far and lost all nitrates.

what do you attribute that caused the growth of your zoas? is it something in the vitamin C itself that causes this? or the carbon dosing it provides that lowers nitrates and phosphates which then cause the burst in growth? is this something that can be observed with substituting say, vinegar, for this same purpose? or does it only come from vitamin C?

 

[John3]

I don’t think the drop in nitrates caused the growth, because when my nitrates got below 10 everything including my zoas looked bad.

I can’t say for certain it even was the vc. I had a frag of utter chaos with 2 polyps. It didn’t grow any new heads for 6 months. I dosed vc and suddenly it started popping new polyps. It went from 2 to 12 in 2 months since the vc was dosed. My sunny d’s were growing good before vc but exploded since. My orange cap montis and Hollywood stunner chalice also grew a lot.

I have no hard proof it was the vc, maybe my tank just hit a sweet spot. I can say that everything continued growing well after I stopped dosing but it seemed to me it provided a jump start. I’ll try to post some before/after growth pics tomorrow.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

what else did you change during this VC dosing that could potentially have aided this growth spurt?

 

[John3]

Nothing else I can think of. My parameters have been very stable now for 6-7 months. I’m using the same seachem ca/alk supplements since the beginning. Only change was the big drop in nitrates but that had an obvious bad affect.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

what made you stop dosing VC
?

 

[John3]

The drop in nitrates. I could never get them below 15 prior to dosing. After dosing I got down close to zero and all my corals looked bad. Zoas closed up, acans shrink, candy cane shrunk. Shrooms didn’t seem to care though.

I could have cut back on the dose to continue using it but just stopped completely.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

The drop in nitrates. I could never get them below 15 prior to dosing. After dosing I got down close to zero and all my corals looked bad. Zoas closed up, acans shrink, candy cane shrunk. Shrooms didn’t seem to care though.

I could have cut back on the dose to continue using it but just stopped completely.

thank you for your candor.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, people seem to often ignore the fact that corals can take up many dosed organic compounds directly from the water and use them to get energy, like a fish or a coral eating solid food you present to it.

I've not seen any convincing data for corals and vitamin C, but I would not be surprised if they can take it up directly and use it. They can, for example, do that with acetate from vinegar. Would vinegar give similar effects? I don't know.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

Wow ok "I'm learning so much. So acetate can feed corals??? Can I ditch the Acro power and Fuel then and just dose vinegar for the corals?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Wow ok "I'm learning so much. So acetate can feed corals??? Can I ditch the Acro power and Fuel then and just dose vinegar for the corals?

Not necessarily. It feeds them organics they can use for energy. It does not feed then nutrients such as N and P, or specific amino acids they may benefit from.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

i have been dosing 2 times a day small amounts and i see great growth in my zoas


i followed thid 656 page thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/zo...vitamin-c-dosing-zoanthids-i-am-clueless.html


im using this stuff:

thank you for this!