Treating with Vitamin C

[SW_nOOb_SC]

Are you dosing via the sump?

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yes, please describe your dosing method, including what amount you started at, what you are at now, how long & how much water volume you have in your tank, along with alk & pH.

Also, what kind of VC are you using?

 

[OCEAN SIZE]

I was considering dosing via the overflow once I start, to give the Vit C the max chance to get soaked into the water chemistry, ensuring I don't have a big block of it slowly melting next to my corals... make sense?

 

[Pufferpunk]

Pure, buffered VC totally dissolves on contact with water.

 

[dark_stranger]

My tank volumn is over 200gallons & consists of a 3ft sump, 2 x 3ft breeder tanks & a 5ft coral frag tank. Vit C is dissolved in tank water, then added to the sump pump section for max distribution. As for the dosing amounts, as per documented on here...

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

And PH, etc are stable.

 

[Jeff]

dark_stranger how much are you dosing and how often?

 

[dark_stranger]

going on the cut/paste of the dosing measurments and considering my tank is approx 200g

Day1 = 3g
Day2 = 7g
Day3 = 10g
Day4 = 15g
Day5 = 20g

since day 5 i have reduced back to 10g due to the adverse effects. As for the product i'm adding, its this stuff...

http://www.returnallhealth.co.uk/se...?article=0002_Sodium+Ascorbate+300gm+=28H1=29

 

[Pufferpunk]

20g sounds like a lot to bump up to in a week. Are you dosing that amount 2x/day? I agree--back down to the 10g, which is roughly around 13ppm & stay there for a while. I have been telling folks to bump up every 3 days to a week (not daily) after observing their corals, unless there is a really severe problem with sick corals.

 

[JAMDivers]

Ok....here we go....(keep your fingers crossed!)

I received my 2 bottles of VC (Sodium Ascorbate Crystalline Powder) from iherb a few minutes ago from UPS and I'm ready to go.

"Before" pics if anyone is interested are in my gallery at:



I hope I did that right...just too many pics to post here.

Puffy are ya there? Here's a few questions for you:

1) I remembered from the reading that you guys were monitoring your pH and ALK levels during the treatment correct? I am going to test both prior to administering VC...should I check during or how long after? And how often are you guys checking that...everyday, once/week during the dosing in the beginning?

2) I know you said the powder form dissolves upon contact with the water. I was going to use RO water to dissolve. And since I don't have a sump (at the moment), should I allow it to drip in via dripline? If so, how fast (1-3 drops/sec kind of thing??) Or just dump it in?

3) I'm not as good with the whole math thing too so could you double check my estimates for me before I start?

EXAMPLE:

63gal total water volume x 15% for live rock and sand = 9.5 gal

63gal - 9.5 gal= 53.5 gallons total water volume to work with but we'll call it 54 gal because I don't have ton of live rock.

54 gal x 5 ppm x 3.785L =which is approximately 1022 mg VC

A 1/4 tsp of the iherb brand is 1112mg of VC....so....should I start off with a 1/4 tsp per day for the 5 ppm solution or were you guys starting with half that amount (say an 1/8 tsp) and going up to 1/4 tsp per day by the 3rd day?

4) My Frogspawn is looking better on it's own so I don't think I'll need to do a VC "treatment" (up to 30 ppm) but I just want to add for color and growth. You mentioned that you were up to about 25 ppm and then went to half that amount for maintenance only. Do I need to go up to 30 ppm, then cut it back or were you pushing the envelope? (Sorry it's been a few days since reading this entire thread)....in other words...what's the target level in ppm for color and growth (5,10, 15ppm etc)?

and lastly,

5) I am running carbon (replaced just yesterday) and 1/2 of a regular sized polyfilter. I think someone mentioned that they were still leaving those in place while dosing. Is that what everyone is still doing?

Thanks for all the fine-tuning in advanced as I want to participate accurately and be able to detail my experience within this VC experiment for others to follow.

Thanks Puffy and everyone

 

[SW_nOOb_SC]

I mix mine with my FW top off water and dump it in. Havn't seen any bad effects yet. But you're safer to wait for Puffer to respond lol.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yup, I'm here!

Yes, start with 1/4 tsp for 3 days, double that for a week & see if you likje the results. I'm maintaining a higher dose, because I'm afraid all the newer zoas I'm investing in lately will subcumb to melting again, if I go aly lower & everything is looking so great--I don't want it to change.

I'd also remove the carbon for now. I did add back the Purigen after things started loking good but this may be another reason I need to dose more.

 

[JAMDivers]

Sounds good....

I'll take out the carbon for now until I get to a higher dosage (that makes sense). However, should I take out the Polyfilter as well (or it may take longer to see the benefits huh with higher doses)? I'm not running a skimmer yet as I'm trying to allow my sandbed to fully mature, critters to develop etc. (it's hard, but I'm holding out they say patience is a virtue, right? LOL )

And how often were you guys testing your pH and ALK? I remeber reading about some wild swings??? Are you testing just after the treatment? If so, how long did you wait to test? I routinely test all water params weekly anyway for my log....is that sufficient? Just trying to get an idea of what everyone's doing.

Thanks again you guys,

 

[Pufferpunk]

I would test before treatment every day, for each week you raise the dosage, until you are sure how much you need to add to adjust alk & pH.

 

[montanabay]

Puffy et al.

I created an interactive html that calculates dose for each ppm in both mg and tsp based off entered tank size (Internet Explorer and Active X required).

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~jharmsen/excel/VCdose1.htm

I also created a link that you can download the excel sheet of the dosing chart. All you have to do edit the gallons to your your tank size and it automatically calculates the dose in mg and in tsp for each PPM.

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~jharmsen/excel/VCdose3.xls

Feel free to add this link to your signature so people nervous dosers can double check their calculations.

Cheers,

Josh

 

[Pufferpunk]

Wow, thanks Josh!

Of course, most don't have seventh or even fith tsps, so rounding off to the nearest 1/4 tsp would be easist.

 

[montanabay]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12765965#post12765965 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pufferpunk
Wow, thanks Josh!

Of course, most don't have seventh or even fith tsps, so rounding off to the nearest 1/4 tsp would be easist.

haha, I didn't even notice that, I just changed it back to decimals.

Cheers,

Josh

 

[JAMDivers]

Man, Montanabay....where were you about an hour ago! LOL

Well, at least I know my math was correct! Hee! Hee! And now I don't have to make a spread sheet...thank god! LOL Which was where I was headed next....seriously. Great Job MBay!

I just was figuring out each next dosage from my own calculations, (which was exactly the same as your calculations), but then figured out it's each one is just shy (estimating of course) of the next 1/4 tsp up just as Puffy said.

Thanks Puffy, we'll do on the testing and will keep a VC log page with my current spreadsheet.

 

[Pufferpunk]

That would be great to have, as I am trying to put together an article.

 

[Jeff]

I run Vista here and cant get the first page to load
I get: To use this Web page interactively, you must have Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later and the Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components.

See the Microsoft Office Web site for more information.

 

[Pufferpunk]

I got that too.