Treating with Vitamin C

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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11837595#post11837595 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PaintGuru
I think our next experiment should be to have folks who have seen success with Vit C reduce their frequency of dosing while keeping the amount added the same. I'm just curious if someone, who has been adding 2000mg 2x/day would continue to see the same benefit if they reduced it to say 2000mg 2x/one day then skip a day, or once/week. This would let us find the point of diminishing returns.


I would also like to see people dosing 20+ ppm (or whatever it is) reduce it to 5ppm and see if they see the same benefits.
 
I'm up to ~23ppm now. Have been for about a week. I'm on my 2nd bottle of VC & don't want to keep going through it so fast, so I'm going to halve it this weekend.
 
Not really... Everything's really looking great but now the base of my purple bonsai is turning white. I'm not sure it this has anything to do with the C or not.
 
Hmmmmm.... Two corals having problems since dosing the higher levels?

Did you change anything else? Add anything? Maybe a pest? Lvls all good?
 
pH 8.2 (as always)
Alk 10.2 (haven't added alk in weeks--since using the buffered C)
Ca 385 (been trying to raise that from 320, earlier in the week. I think with all the extra growth lately, the corals have been using it faster. I used to use a tsp every night of Pedlow & now, I'm using a tbsp.
MG 1290 (I'll add a little tonight)

My concern is that both had white bases. Is that common w/SPS? The rest of the branches of the bonsai look fine--just where it's growing on the rock. There are also 3 other SPS very close to it (that rainbow monti is fighting it for space) & a large toadstook leaning on it but where it's touching is ok.
 
I went from 500mg 2x a day to 1000mg 2x a day after about 2 weeks and noticed my Frogspawn and Leather closing up more.. I downed it back to 500mg and all is big and happy again! I think it is possible to over do it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11844591#post11844591 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by iairj84
I went from 500mg 2x a day to 1000mg 2x a day after about 2 weeks and noticed my Frogspawn and Leather closing up more.. I downed it back to 500mg and all is big and happy again! I think it is possible to over do it.

Nice observation. Perhaps you could add it to the data thread?
 
Tried the Vitamin C trick now for 3 days and one colony of my Zoas had been closing up quite a bit...Now every polyp is open 95% of the time, that is until my lawnmower blenny goes flying by and smacks them with his tail!!!!!!!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11844591#post11844591 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by iairj84
I went from 500mg 2x a day to 1000mg 2x a day after about 2 weeks and noticed my Frogspawn and Leather closing up more.. I downed it back to 500mg and all is big and happy again! I think it is possible to over do it.


Interesting. Would you mind trying to go back up to 1000mg and see if you can repeat the situation? See if they close up again? As PaintGuru said, if you would add all this to the VC Data thread it would be much appreciated. I noticed you already posted in there, maybe post with a paragraph on what you changed and what reactions you had. Also include a link back to your original post?

If you don't know how to get the link to your post, there is a little link at the bottom of your post that says "Open this post in a new window". Click that and a new window pops up which goes straight to your post. Here is your post link

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11792143#post11792143
 
None of my LPS have been affected by the higher dosages I've been doing. In my 40g, I've got lots of different frogspawn/hammers & been dosing 1tbsp (sorry, I can't figure out the math)
 
Started 1/26 with a buffered C very small amount, increasing the amount as recommended. Sorry I don't remember how much I started with.
NewPics010.jpg


Now I'm up to 1 tbsp 2 twice a day.
NewPics035.jpg

They have looked like this for about 2 weeks now. But before you start saying "WOW that's a huge difference" I have had a couple of other things happening. One major thing is my Girlfriend was messing with the settings of my camera. So the after pic is much brighter and more vivid. But the Zoa are brighter then they were before but not as much as seen in the after pic. And 2nd, which I think is the most significant, Before I started dosing the Vit C I found out my refractor was off by 5 ppm. I was getting 35ppm but it was actually 30. So while I've been dosing the Vit C I have also been doing weekly 5gal water changes to slowly bring up the salinity.

So I can't say really say if the response of my Zoa looking as good as they do now is because of the salinity increase (Coralife salt) or the Vit C.

I might stop with the Vit C and see what kind of reaction I get.
 
30 ppm=1.023 which, although a tad low, isnt bad at all. I keep mine at 34 ppm which is 1.025. I bet the vitamin C was a big help with your zoas. Great before and after pictures.

BTW, they are awsome looking :) .
 
Pufferpunk........I dont think your "buffered" vitamin C you are using will buffer the alk...especially if its bufferered with calcium. I cant imagine how you dont need to add alk without dosing VC......especially with.

Has anyone else been testing the crap out of their alk while dosing either the buffered or the non buffered pure powder?? I want to hear some specific results if you have been.

I dont like what its doing all fo a sudden. I am having a problem recently in some of my sps. Maybe related maybe not.....but all 3 of my stylos are ticked. Really ticked...started yesterday. It appears as though Im going to lose a 2" peaches and ***** stylo, and my rainbow which is a little larger doesnt look good, but has hardly any PE.......lastly I have two pinks and both of them have poor PE but its there throughout.

Everything else looks great and although I didnt start this for any real problems...I can say my polyps look super happy and I think a few even look more brilliantly colored. No changes noticed to any of the other 150+ sps in the tank besides the stylos mentioned above
??

back to the alk.......every time I dose there is a massive temporary alk swing.........2 dkh or so...TWICE a day. I wasnt letting it bother me as I would follow as soon as I would wait a little and measure........the last few days I have been dosing the 75 ml sodium carbonate necessary at the same time in the tail side of my 100 gallon sump.

I stopped dosing today until I figure this out.

jdieck...or anyone who knows chemisty much better than I......are there any other secondary potential affects to the rest of my 2 part methodology and water chemistry due to having to add that much additional alk??

To throw a little bit of relevance on that number, I am dosing roughly 300 ml a day of each part
 
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ok... i'm on page 22 of this thread.. i'm not sold on this..

the one huge glaring problem with this treatment is that alot of the reported positive results were with ascorbic acid... wouldnt that not really last very long in a basic solution? wouldnt the acid be oxidized very quickly? will the ascorbic acid even have the effect that it's supposed to have when it is bonded to OH-? I'm no chemist but i do have a rudimentary understanding about how ions work in solution and it just seems like very little of this stuff will actually make it to any of the tanks inhabitants. Also nearly all ** hits the submit button by accident** organisms produce it internally.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11848782#post11848782 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by flyyyguy
Pufferpunk........I dont think your "buffered" vitamin C you are using will buffer the alk...especially if its bufferered with calcium. I cant imagine how you dont need to add alk without dosing VC......especially with.

No changes noticed to any of the other 150+ sps in the tank besides the stylos mentioned above
??

back to the alk.......every time I dose there is a massive temporary alk swing.........2 dkh or so...TWICE a day.

jdieck...or anyone who knows chemisty much better than I......are there any other secondary potential affects to the rest of my 2 part methodology and water chemistry due to having to add that much additional alk??

To throw a little bit of relevance on that number, I am dosing roughly 300 ml a day of each part

As I mentioned befor none of the "buffered" forms should increase the alkalinity but should not decrease it either.
The non buffered one (the acid form) will reduce alkalinity and PH.

300 ml/day of Randy's recipe 1 will add about 2 dKh of alkalinity to your 225 system which for a daily consumption on a heavy loades sps tank could even be on the low side.

When you refer that the vitamin when added causes a "temporary" alkalinity swing do you mean it swings back by itself to the previous level or do you do something to bring it back up? Is it a swing on PH and not alkalinity, what exactly do you refer too?
 
Hey!
My first post on RC. This thread is great.
set up:
40 breeder
30#LR
AC Remora
Koralia nanos - 3, #2 - 1
5 36" T-5's - 1 420nm, 1 460nm, 1 10000k, 2 6500k
STOCK :
1 sm clown
14 SPS 2 of which are large (7-8") rest are frags - 3-4"
6" wall hammer
3 headed torch
6 headed spawn
6head candy cane
5-6 zoas - small colonies / frags
4 micromussa frags
4 4" acan frags
2 GSP's
2 rics
2 favia

I've lost a few zoa colonies to a "pox" looking issue. I treated sick colonies w/ SeaChem Reef Dip, lost a little more but some came back. Now I'm going through it again. Only Zoas and not all are affected. I mentioned on my local reef club site that the affected colonies were being ravished by large amphipodes - like I read from someone here. Last week I lost my last 3 yellow polyps OVERNIGHT. They were being eaten by large amphi's when I got up in the middle of the night to let my elderly dog out. By morning all 3 were gone. Last night a similar thing happened to a micromussa frag (2 heads) that had shrunk over a week or so - saw big amphi's on it and this morning it was totally gone. I've never tried Furan-2. I did more that usual water changes (usual is 4 gal / week on a 40 breeder) Paly colonie is doing great - grownig pretty fast. SPS are all growing fast. Acans growing slow (normal).
I'm starting VC dosing today - 500mg once / day for rest of this week. I'll go twice / day next week, and creep dosage up each week or less as long as things are looking OK.
I've logged water parameters, taken pictures and will log doses. I'll organize in the other thread soon.
I'm optimistic this will help me. I think this tank is over stocked and I have anothe r40- coming online soon to try and relieve this tank. Water Parameters have been excellent, but I can't measure any possible chemicals corals might be emitting...
 
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