My experience with Vit C & Zoas

[RJ M.]

they look great,,but my experience was far from good..
I started dosing the buffered Iherb Vit C,,things looked good for a few days then it went upside down backwards and my system crashed..Crashed fast,,I got as many corals to new salt water and still lost more of them..
I was dosing very minor amounts to take things easy in the beginning,,but who knows what actually made my system crash..
Might be a coincidence but Im not trying that again until more research is done it.

Wow! Goes to show what works in ones tank might not work in anothers

 

[wattson]

I have done a ton of reading on it before trying it.
all I have is zoas/palys mainly with some clavularas and 1 frog spawn coral..
Might be another a reason or variable that caused my crash but still trying to regroup my system..
This Vit C might work wonders for some, but proceed with caution.
I would love to know the secret to zoas,,some people have the touch while others dont..

 

[John3]

My nitrates have really come down since dosing the vc. I stopped rinsing my frozen food and started feeding the fish a little more since I like to have some nitrates.

I have:
4 types of acans
Hollywood stunner chalice
Pipe organ coral
Dragon soul Favia
2 types of blasto
Lobo
Orange montipora
Candy canes
Sunny d
Utter chaos
4-5 other zoas
Caribbean rose coral
Star corals cup corals
Florida rics
Disco shrooms
Rhodactis shrooms

So far no I’ll affects dosing vc. I could see if your nutrients are low before vc it could drop them dangerously low. I have a few corals in recovery and I believe I have seen some good signs in them as far as tissue regrowth and color. Everything that was healthy hasn’t seemed to change.

I had just added a new black clown just before dosing vc. He got beat up the first. Night and had some pretty good fin damage. Everything on him was back to normal in a week. Did the vc help, not sure.

 

[Legal Reefer]

I was having problems with my zoas not opening all the way so I started using chemi pure blue. Next day or two my water was super clear but all zoas closed more and looked worse. After a few days I removed the chemi pure and the zoas started opening a little. I was thinking about dosing the vitamin c but will follow to see more results from others testing first. Does anyone know of any adverse effects if you stop dosing completely once your zoas are looking good?

 

[John3]

Where are you nitrates at? It sounds like they might be low because I believe chemi pure blue will remove some nutrients. So if your zoas looked worse using it maybe they are starving?

Dosing vc is apparently a form of carbon dosing. I’m seeing it first hand with my nitrates dropping. So if your nutrients are low dosing vc may be a negative issue as it can further starve them.

 

[Legal Reefer]

Nitrates 10 ppm right before a 20% water change. Need to re check it now.

 

[Legal Reefer]

Everything else looks good. Favia growing good after rescuing it from petco, Duncan growing several new heads, hammer, ricordea, xenia, star polyps all look good. Only thing struggling is the zoas and some clove polyps, although the cloves are starting to spread a little bit they are tiny.

 

[John3]

I don’t think anyone can say for certain that vc can’t/won’t cause harm. I haven’t seen any issue but I have seen others who have. My only concern is the dropping nitrates.

10-15ppm nitrates is pretty ideal for most lps and soft corals. I know some of mine thrived in even higher amounts. I know I am not trying to drop below 10 in my tank. You just may be sitting right on the edge of low and your zoas don’t like it. If that is the case vc could be more harmful since it might drop nitrates even more.

I just jumped in and used vc thinking there weren’t many negatives. Considering the drop in nitrates I have seen I now think that was somewhat foolish on my part. For those with high nitrates this could be a good answer. If youth nitrates are ideal or low I could see the potential for issues. My mindset was dose and keep a very close eye on the tank and be prepared to do water changes if needed. Fortunately I didn’t have to do that.

 

[Legal Reefer]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking around 2.5 ppm would be good. I'll let the nitrates build up and keep them higher for a while and see how that goes

 

[A. grandis]

I wanted to share my recent experience with vitamin C dosing that I used to try and save a zoa colony. The most surprising part was how much of an effect it had on another colony that I was sure was doomed, and also the amazing effects it had on pest algae in the tank.

I have recently been experiencing some problems with one of my colonies. I have roughly 30 different colonies in the tank but only this one seemed to be exhibiting these signs, since i have grown it out for 2 years I decided to act fast. The majority of them closed up tight and started to melt away. I could not spot any pests on them at night except for bristle worms.

Here is a pic when I started to notice the problem on April 22nd.

Night shot a couple days later and new placement (in case it was flow related). This pic was taken the night I started the dosing. Notice all of the algae wrapped around the zoa, mostly dead. This algae has been on them for over a year.

Here is a pic of a plug that I surely thought was a goner that I just recently received. Normally (10/10 for me) when I get new polyps in and they look strained and browning they never make it for me at least. I apologize for the pic, I did not really document these as well because I thought they were dead...

I am now on my 6th day dosing and here is how they looked this morning.

Most polyps are now open except for just a couple. But wow, look at how clean that colony is now! The algae is almost 100% gone! Amazing

The new plug I got not only all opened up, but they look like they have different color. I am assuming because they may have expelled their zoox. It is really amazing because I have never seen zoa's come back from this type of stress in the 5 yrs I have been reefing. I have lost all that tend to come in and look like that. Very rarely will they make it.

Top down so you can see how different those polyps look that were closed up.

There has certainly been a couple downsides. My filter socks, and media baskets have clogged up with this white stringy algae that I assume is just dying algae? Ive lost a lot if not all macro algae. However this does not bother me as I don't have a big fuge for macro.

Here is a pic of the stringy stuff clogging everything.

I plan to do a massive WC tomorrow and start cutting back on the dosing now that things look much better. I am sold and I will always dose a little bit of this in my tank from now on.

Thanks for looking

Vitamin C is great!
I actually had a problem adding it to my system: the zoas are growing out of the water!! LOL!
Grandis.

 

[John3]

So I will need to either cutback my vc dose or discontinue use altogether. My nitrates have really dropped using it. If you have high nitrates I would consider vc a good option on lowering them. My nitrates used to consistently be around 20-25. After a few weeks with vc I am down to 10 and don’t want to go any further. I tried feeding fish and corals more and not rinsing the frozen food for a week now and they haven’t budged off 10. I had a green paly that was having an issue with dying flesh and it has been making a comeback. Everything else is growing good but nothing phenomenal. So I can’t say how much positive effect on corals there really was from it.

After seeing the nitrates drop like this I am starting to wonder if some of the people using it for sick zoas had really high nitrates. So high that it caused algae growth or just made zoas sick. The lowering of the nitrates then provided a positive response in the the zoas. Just a guess since I didn’t see tank parameters for many using vc for this purpose.

 

[A. grandis]

Every time I've tested for nitrates I found it undetectable. Even before I've tried vitamin C.
I'm not familiar with your experiences and relationship between vitamin C and nitrates. Thanks for sharing.

One thing I can tell you is that I add such small doses that many say it won't make absolutely make any difference, but for some reason in my system it does make a tremendous difference!! I'm adding 3 to 4 drops of vitamin C only 3 times a week now and it's almost to much!! LOL! Could be that vitamin C needs to be added in very low amounts to boost them up. Many say they add much more than I do every day and they don't see results.
I've tested that by stopping using it for like 3 weeks and noticed that the zoas were a bit less vibrant, but still very healthy as aways.
I've also heard people like to use vitamin C for damaged or weak/sick zoas with great results.
I have no weak zoas by any means and colors/growth/reproduction is out of my hands without vitamin C, but when I added it to the water they started to look even more vibrant and I have patches growing out of the water now!! Scary! LOL! I'm glad they respect the overflow. I think it's because I clean the top frequently. Haha!

I recommend vitamin C for new tanks and weak zoas in very low dosage. I'm not sure if it will actually cure any symptoms/diseases, but I would think it can give a boost to the zoas' lives and normally many people would agree with that. I strongly believe that it needs a time to act and it's a powerful additive.
There are those who think vitamin C is like "snake oil". They either don't see well, or have something wrong with their tank that is preventing vitamin C to act, I would say. It's hard to really understand how it works though.
This is what I'm using now:

I think I'm going to try this too:

Any articles would be nice!

Grandis.

 

[John3]

My friends tank has very high nitrates and we’re gonna run a test in her tank. So running vc is a form of carbon dosing so it’s not so much of a surprise the nitrates dropped. Vc just hasn’t caught on as a carbon dosing product yet, but it’s other positive effects could really make it a preferred choice.

I was dosing the buffered ascorbic acid powder. I was dosing a higher amount which was suggested for sick zoas or sick fish. I had a big grandis paly with dying tissue and a beat up clown and both look much better after dosing.

I only stopped as I can see some affects on my lps from the nitrate drop. I might just cut the dose way down but for now I needed to stop.

 

[A. grandis]

You should add only a little of it, not stopping, because it's beneficial. I don't follow the recommended dosages at all.
Try to add drops to the system, like I do, instead huge amounts. Those recommended dosages are HUGE compared to drops.
Vitamin C can be used for a stablished healthy thriving system as a boost to the colors and to have our sessile invertebrates at it's flourishing stage. I believe that small dosages are much better than not dosing or large dosages.
This is a good thread!

Please keep us posted about the test with your friend's tank!
Grandis.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Post is from a few months ago, but interested to read some updates for people who have been using this for treating their paly/zoas.

 

[wattson]

Short term effects and that's pretty much it .
Think it was a main contributor of my system crashing in the past but that's my best guess from the details .
Not worth pursuing in my mind ever again..
Sorry nothing more positive to say .

 

[Revos]

Every time I've tested for nitrates I found it undetectable. Even before I've tried vitamin C.
I'm not familiar with your experiences and relationship between vitamin C and nitrates. Thanks for sharing.

One thing I can tell you is that I add such small doses that many say it won't make absolutely make any difference, but for some reason in my system it does make a tremendous difference!! I'm adding 3 to 4 drops of vitamin C only 3 times a week now and it's almost to much!! LOL! Could be that vitamin C needs to be added in very low amounts to boost them up. Many say they add much more than I do every day and they don't see results.
I've tested that by stopping using it for like 3 weeks and noticed that the zoas were a bit less vibrant, but still very healthy as aways.
I've also heard people like to use vitamin C for damaged or weak/sick zoas with great results.
I have no weak zoas by any means and colors/growth/reproduction is out of my hands without vitamin C, but when I added it to the water they started to look even more vibrant and I have patches growing out of the water now!! Scary! LOL! I'm glad they respect the overflow. I think it's because I clean the top frequently. Haha!

I recommend vitamin C for new tanks and weak zoas in very low dosage. I'm not sure if it will actually cure any symptoms/diseases, but I would think it can give a boost to the zoas' lives and normally many people would agree with that. I strongly believe that it needs a time to act and it's a powerful additive.
There are those who think vitamin C is like "snake oil". They either don't see well, or have something wrong with their tank that is preventing vitamin C to act, I would say. It's hard to really understand how it works though.
This is what I'm using now:

I think I'm going to try this too:

Any articles would be nice!

Grandis.

3-4 drops? How big is your tank? I am running a 35g tank How many drops do u recomend? I am using vitamarin c

 

[Superlightman]

Hello how much vitamin C we have to ad to the tank?could be that some people have issue because a bacteria blum or ph because of using the wrong vitaminC?

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Human grade vitamin C should almost exclusively be ascorbic acid with some really low level inert ingredients. There really shouldn't be a major difference with different brands.

 

[blasterman]

I would love to know the secret to zoas,,some people have the touch while others dont..

Zoas and palys need stable nutrient levels and do best with nitrate levels a tad elevated; between 5-10. You also need to keep phosphate no lower than .03. Yes, they do like water on the dirtier side, but still within the range that even finicky SPS corals are happy with.

Most reefers having problems with zoas let either nitrate or phosphate bottom out correcting other issues like nuisance algaes. This can't happen. Smaller zoas in particular can't handle nitrate dives, and a 10 point dive in nitrate when your zoas are used to a higher level can cause them to receed and look bad. While zoas are regarded as a beginner coral ironically aren't suitable for newer tank nutrient swings. Newer tank owners often find themselves in a dilema of having too much nuisance algae growth while having an investment in soft corals that don't like the inevitable nutrient dives and aggressive water changes that are a result.

Also, the smaller the zoa the more sensitive they are. Larger zoas like gobstoppers for example can take a lot of abuse, but hornets in particular get a rep for melting, and it's mostly due to nutrient swings,