Treating with Vitamin C

[Pufferpunk]

Are you adding it only to the amount you are using to top off? Because if you are like, adding it to a 5g bucket, the VC will dissapate, a few hours.

 

[SW_nOOb_SC]

I dose the amount needed for the tank in the top off and then add it to the tank. Am i correct in doing it this way?

 

[Pufferpunk]

Sounds right, I thought you were using a drip system & in that case, the VC would be no good after a few hours of dissolving in water.

 

[Jeff]

Is anybody using an ultra low nutrient system like Prodibio, Ultralith, and/or Zeovit and dosing vitamin c at the same time? I use Prodibio with Zeo food with huge success but since I stopped dosing vitamin c two and a half months ago my softies have stopped their wild growth/spreading like when I was on the vitamin c.
I dont want to turn this into a dicussion about one of the other systems, I just wonder if it's possible to do both at the same time.

 

[OCEAN SIZE]

Hm. Good question Jeff. I'd imagine they are supposed to achieve the same results. I'd imagine the carbon in the Vitamin C would get consumed by your probidio / zeo / ultralith system... you could probably feed it less

 

[Jeff]

I think you may be right. They are both most likely carbon sources. I achieved completely different results with each thing though which makes me believe they may be doing different things.

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12712976#post12712976 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jeff
I think you may be right. They are both most likely carbon sources. I achieved completely different results with each thing though which makes me believe they may be doing different things.

How long have you been using zeo/prodibio?

 

[Jeff]

Two and a half months. I have been off of vitamin c for the same amount of time.

 

[montanabay]

I really think we are off track thinking of ascorbic acid as a carbon source. I have been researching this a bit now and have found no scientific evidence that ascorbic acid or its products post oxidation as a useful carbon source for any organism. Ascorbic acid is a sugar acid, but that does not mean it can be used as an energy source or carbon source, whether whole or oxidized.

What is known, is that ascorbate (read ascorbic acid or vitamin C) plays a critical role in the metabolic process of photosynthetic organisms, as a component in the antioxidant system, that protect against oxidative damage resulting from aerobic metabolism, photosynthesis and a range of pollutants.

It is also known that ascorbate is a cofactor with hydroxylase enzymes. Ascorbate oxidase (the product of ascorbate and hydroxylase enzyme) is known to control cellular growth. High ascorbate oxidase activity is also associated with rapidly expanding cells.

So in sort, ascorbate plays an important function as an antioxidant defense (oxygen related toxins produced from photosynthesis) and as an important function in growth regulation of cells.

Also keep in mind that I focused on the function of ascorbate in photosynthetic organisms, in mammals and other animals it also plays a critical role in enzymatic reactions which is why we call it a Vitamin and the functional range that ascorbate is used in metabolic processes is extremely vast among species.

This information was summarized from peer reviewed scientific journals. I did not add the citations in fear that people would turned off by it as being "too much", but if you would like more info, references, etc please let me know.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Excellent info!

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12713959#post12713959 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by montanabay
I really think we are off track thinking of ascorbic acid as a carbon source. I have been researching this a bit now and have found no scientific evidence that ascorbic acid or its products post oxidation as a useful carbon source for any organism. Ascorbic acid is a sugar acid, but that does not mean it can be used as an energy source or carbon source, whether whole or oxidized.

What is known, is that ascorbate (read ascorbic acid or vitamin C) plays a critical role in the metabolic process of photosynthetic organisms, as a component in the antioxidant system, that protect against oxidative damage resulting from aerobic metabolism, photosynthesis and a range of pollutants.

It is also known that ascorbate is a cofactor with hydroxylase enzymes. Ascorbate oxidase (the product of ascorbate and hydroxylase enzyme) is known to control cellular growth. High ascorbate oxidase activity is also associated with rapidly expanding cells.

So in sort, ascorbate plays an important function as an antioxidant defense (oxygen related toxins produced from photosynthesis) and as an important function in growth regulation of cells.

Also keep in mind that I focused on the function of ascorbate in photosynthetic organisms, in mammals and other animals it also plays a critical role in enzymatic reactions which is why we call it a Vitamin and the functional range that ascorbate is used in metabolic processes is extremely vast among species.

This information was summarized from peer reviewed scientific journals. I did not add the citations in fear that people would turned off by it as being "too much", but if you would like more info, references, etc please let me know.

Ascorbic acid is a carbon compound closely related to glucose. I'd like to hear you explain why you don't think it's a carbon source...

Do a single one of those peer reviewed scientific journals relate to marine organisms in any way. If they do, in particular do they relate to corals, zoanthids, or zoxanthellae in any way?

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12713690#post12713690 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jeff
Two and a half months. I have been off of vitamin c for the same amount of time.

Just my opinion... You went from a mild carbon source to a more potent one. So, you went from a fairly low nutrient system to a lower nutrient system where certain corals such as many soft corals might wither. It also may simply be that you've been running a low nutrient long enough to start seeing negatives in corals that do better with slightly higher nutrient levels.

 

[montanabay]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12715105#post12715105 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Peter Eichler
Ascorbic acid is a carbon compound closely related to glucose. I'd like to hear you explain why you don't think it's a carbon source...

Do a single one of those peer reviewed scientific journals relate to marine organisms in any way. If they do, in particular do they relate to corals, zoanthids, or zoxanthellae in any way?

I have posted a few papers earlier in this thread relating to sponges, corals, and zoxanthellae. I have yet to find an article titled "Ascorbic Acid in Zoanthid Corals", but I feel a lot more confident that ascorbic acid is acting as an antioxidant in dosing, than as a carbon source. When I get back to work I can post the titles and links to these articles.

Many organic compounds are made from glucose, it is an essential building block to many compounds, but that does not mean ascorbate is utilized as glucose, ascorbate is an acid, a huge difference in chemistry. Do you have references that describe the utilization of ascorbic acid or its possible derivatives as glucose? I have not had any luck finding this information.

I am confused by the resistance to this theory (I acknowledge it is a theory), and the attachment that it is a carbon source. I can not find any information on ascorbic acid being used as a sugar, nor can I find any information on ascorbic acid naturally breaking down into glucose.

I have a good friend that is a chemistry graduate student, hopefully they will have some additional information to share.

I'll check in back in tomorrow!

Cheers and Good Night!

Josh

 

[montanabay]

Good Morning All,

So here is a really good paper reviewing the literature on oxidative stress in marine environments. This paper reviews corals, zoxanthellae, antioxidant defenses (including ascorbate), the causes of oxidative stress (UV, temperature, pollutants etc) and many other pertinent topics to this discussion. If there is one paper to read this one is it. Please let me know if you would like a pdf copy and I can email that to you.

Lesser, 2006 M.P. Lesser, Oxidative stress in marine environments: biochemistry and physiological ecology, Annu. Rev. Physiol. 68 (2006), pp. 253ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“278.

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org...ENVIRONMENTS:+Biochemistry+and+Physiological"

 

[montanabay]

so I asked my friend who is a biochemistry graduate student about ascorbate and if it was possible that it could be used as a carbon source. She actually mentioned something that I hadn't considered yet, that ascorbic acid is also an important stimulant to collagen production, as it turn out soft corals are made of it (which could explain growth).

Here is her response:


Ascorbate is a cofactor in several enzymatic pathways and can also scavenge free radicals so is used by the cell as an antioxidant the only pathway I could locate in my biochem text was about collagen production, which I'm guessing is not relevant to corals. (Edit: I looked this up, soft corals, including zoanthids ARE made up of collagen and it turns out that in the literature ascorbate plays an important role in the stimulation of collagen production, which would contribute to cell growth and repair).

Upon looking at the ascorbate molecule again, I realize that it does not look anything like glucose the only similarity is that it they both are made up of C,H, and O, but this is true of a large percentage of biomolecules.

I won't give you the chemical differences without speaking with you because they're too numerous and involve too much chemistry to explain over gchat.

There is not going to be a biochemical pathway for the transformation of ascorbic acid to glucose because this would require an energy input and would be inefficient, also as I said before, cells do not use a compound that has a specific and important biological function as an energy (also termed carbon) source. This is because the production or import of this compound into the cell is highly regulated and also because these compounds are required in smaller quantities and are also found in smaller quantities in the environment than preferred carbon sources.

If you want to understand this concept more thoroughly, you will have to invest some time in reading the chapters in a biology textbook that concern cell metabolism and regulation. I can also tell you that glucose is not broken down into ascorbic acid because glucose is broken down in a well-defined pathway you can look up glycolysis in a text book if you want, at any rate there is no good reason to believe that vitamin C acts as anything other than an antioxidant because this is one of its major functions in all cells, whereas its metabolism for the purpose of energy production is never reported in texts or literature.


Cheers,

Josh

 

[montanabay]

Follow up on ascorbate and collagen production:

Here is a paper with the finding that ascorbic acid significantly increases the production of collagen in both a soft and hard coral. The two species in this article are Xenia elongate (pulsing xenia) and Montipora digitata, both common corals kept by reefers.

So ascorbate could be acting on two fronts. 1) An antioxidant that neutralizes toxic oxygen radicals produced in photosynthesis and 2) In growth, acting as a stimulant in collagen production, the major structural component of soft corals.

Here is the citation, again if you would like the pdf please let me know.

Helman, Yael, Natale, Frank, Sherrell, Robert M., et al. Extracellular matrix production and calcium carbonate precipitation by coral cells in vitro 2008

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/1/54

 

[OCEAN SIZE]

Phenomenal work Montanabay. Seriously.

Are polyps in lps / sps constructed of collagen ?

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12720546#post12720546 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by montanabay
Follow up on ascorbate and collagen production:

Here is a paper with the finding that ascorbic acid significantly increases the production of collagen in both a soft and hard coral. The two species in this article are Xenia elongate (pulsing xenia) and Montipora digitata, both common corals kept by reefers.

So ascorbate could be acting on two fronts. 1) An antioxidant that neutralizes toxic oxygen radicals produced in photosynthesis and 2) In growth, acting as a stimulant in collagen production, the major structural component of soft corals.

Here is the citation, again if you would like the pdf please let me know.

Helman, Yael, Natale, Frank, Sherrell, Robert M., et al. Extracellular matrix production and calcium carbonate precipitation by coral cells in vitro 2008

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/1/54

I'm still a skeptic, but I'm certainly not willing to write off vitamin C as nothing more than a carbon source. Many of the experiences posted here and elsewhere point to ascorbic acid acting as a carbon source, from lowered nitrates to reduction of nuisance algae and bacterial blooms, so I still feel that's part of the benefit. So, I'm interested in seeing the PDF's you have. If you need to email them, send them to pseichler@yahoo.com

I'd also like to see Borneman, Veron, Randy H. Farley, and maybe even Greenbean review the articles as well since they will be able to decipher them much better than I will.

Thanks Much!
Peter

 

[Pufferpunk]

Is is possible it's acting as both a carbon source & antioxident/collagen rebuilder?

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12722758#post12722758 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pufferpunk
Is is possible it's acting as both a carbon source & antioxident/collagen rebuilder?

Sure, there are a lot of possibilities... But, no offense to anyone in this thread, ascorbic acid use has been so willy nilly that it's tough to decipher what it's doing, or if it's doing anything at all.