Treating with Vitamin C

[mesamech]

Thank you very much, I am going to start tomorrow. I'll try to take some before and after pics.

 

[redfishsc]

After dosing for about a week, I have to say that I'm impressed!

Absolutely no side effects I can see so far. I am dosing between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp (hard to measure exactly with what I'm using) every day in a system with roughly 40-50 gallons.

All of my zoas are open, when normally there would be one or two varieties that are closed. I have probably 10 different varieties, mostly small 10-30 polyp frags.

My green palys are open more than I've EVER seen them in the year I've had them, and feeding response is good.

Other stuff like LPS and SPS either seem to be ambivalent, or a few with some good inflation (frogspawn and torch).

Fantastic results so far, we'll see how this fuels growth.





Lastly, what's the most anyone dosed (ppm or tsp per 100 gallon) on a long-term (months) basis?

 

[Garage1217]

Giving this a try starting last night. Just got some 500mg pills from walgreens. dosing 2000mg night / 2000mg morning in about 130G total water volume.

I have a colony of zoa that look stretched & weak for months. Will see how they turn out in 30 days.

 

[frenchie]

so been following this thread and got my order from iherb and from what i'm reading if tank is fine and corals are ok sticking with 5ppm is good way to go for coral growth and health no need to dose any higher.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Garage, Please read the dosing instructions Jeff posted carefully. Do not just dose willy-nilly with Walgreen's VC pills!

Stretched zoas are usually looking for more light.

 

[Garage1217]

I do not mean vertically stretched for light, I mean looks like they were pulled like a rubber band across the rock. Did not used to be that way.

And yeah, I started in the first pages of VC so I am using the willy nilly pills hahaha. Will go for awhile and see how things go with the non buffered type / see if anything at all happens. And I am at the correct qty for 5ppm per my water volume.

Other than the 1 colony, I have no need to do this, just an experiment. So will try the buffered next.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Just keep a really close eye on your alk/pH. I used the piles for about a month or so, until my pH dropped to 7.8.

 

[Jeff]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15491226#post15491226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pufferpunk
Garage, Please read the dosing instructions Jeff posted carefully. Do not just dose willy-nilly with Walgreen's VC pills!

Stretched zoas are usually looking for more light.

I agree. There is a big difference between the pure sodium ascorbate and drugstore pills.

 

[Garage1217]

Gotcha, besides the PH, please tell me what the difference is? I am not worried about a few pills at 4ph, I drip liquid at 6.4ish PH day and night. All tanks are open top. Checked ph throughout this dosing so far, has not changed a bit.

 

[Jeff]

I, like a lot of people started using drugstore pills a couple years ago and over the course of time started to see ph and alk drop. After switching to the Iherb product, the problem went away and I saw a marked increase in results as well. There is no savings using pills, especially with larger tanks.

 

[Garage1217]

Ah no problem, just curious as to the reason. I have these now so will just use them and see if I notice anything at all in any way. If things respond in a positive mannor, then I will look into the lab grade stuff that is buffered.

Also ph is totally variable with gas exchange and many other factors such as lighting, photosynthesis blah blah Why would it build up over time and gradually drop? Does not make much sense to me. Have a quick and dirty explanation for dummies on this one??

 

[Pufferpunk]

Did you ever think about what holds those pills in tablet form? A bunch of fillers you really don't want in your tank. I prefer to use the pure, buffered VC. At 5ppm, you may have nothing to worry about. I wonder if you are seeing much of an improvement at that level though.

 

[Garage1217]

Considering so many were dropping VC in pills early on, I am not to worried. Just looking for any signs of changes in anything in the tank. Just planned to go at 5ppm for the first week, then up the dosing. All just an experiment to see what the fuss is all about / see if my tank can gain anything from this method. If it does, then I will consider the next step.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Stressing the "early on", we have learned a lot about this in the past 2 years, sp please read on... That was only me using the pills at the beginning & I already said my pH dropped to 7.8. Took a ton of WC to get it back too. What product are you dripping that also lowers your pH?

 

[Garage1217]

A calcium reactor

And I still do not see how your PH dropped and just sat at 7.8. You could have opened a window, put a fan on the tank, left lights on, more surface agitation... A ton of ways to raise it unless something else was a factor which I cannot contemplate at the moment. Just very strange as PH is variable daily / nightly / hourly / But you experienced whatever you experienced.

And thanks for all for the advice! Again, if I see any change or benefit from simple pills of L Ascorbic Acid, then I will look into a more pure form. I will not be posting again in this thread until my basic little experiment is over.

Also um... no it was not only you using pills early on, I have read countless posts with others using the pills and reporting outstanding results all through the countless thread splits / other forums and so forth through the last few years.

 

[Lariviere]

Someone have good results using Brightwell vitamarin C ?

And what's the result over sps ? ( my tank is 80% sps, 20% zoanthids)

Thanks!

 

[Jeff]

I think you guys are missing the point of using pure buffered sodium ascorbate. Other forms of VC will work great but the Iherb product or similar is much cheaper, easier to dose and the formula for using it has been refined, tested, and proven to work better then pills. We really are not sure what all is in the fillers, binders, and coating used in the various forms of pills. No one is completely sure what the effects of using them are over time other then adverse effects to ph and alk. The whole point of this thread is to test and share results of dosing vc and we moved away from an inferior way of dosing to a much better one over a year ago. The people that started with pills that are still dosing are now using the powder form with much better results.

 

[Jeff]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15498947#post15498947 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lariviere
Someone have good results using Brightwell vitamarin C ?

And what's the result over sps ? ( my tank is 80% sps, 20% zoanthids)

Thanks!

Brightwell is a company that makes great products mostly. I have not used the VC product from them but looking at the ingredients I cant believe that you can save money, get the same results, or be able to dose the same way that using the pure form provides. One of the things we do know about sodium ascorbate is that it breaks down rapidly when exposed to fluids which is the way their product is packaged. As of now, the dry, buffered form is the best bang for the buck. Correct me if I am wrong Puffy.

 

[Pufferpunk]

100% correct! I have looked at Brightwell's procuct & at the amounts I have dosed in the past, I think it would take 2-3 days to use up the entire bottle, compared to 2-3 months to use up the 16 oz container of the I-herb product. Look at how much VC is in each.

My SPS are growing faster, have better PE & all around color.

 

[sammie]

So if I get this correct on a system with about 200 gal of water I'l need to add 2 tsp of the Iherb product twice per day to achieve 20-25 PPM?