Treating With Vitamin C

[aquarius77]

I put one drop of lugols in my 100 gallon system today after reading this and thinking about it. It says one drop per 25g but im not going to put stress on my shrimp and hermits and i dont have an iodine test. I rarely add it and when i do its not much at all. I have potassium iodide 2% and i have used that a few times as well.
When i dip corals in lugols and tank water i dont wash them off in fresh tank water before they go back into the tank. I do this to add a bit of iodine to the system so i guess im adding a little more than i let on. In the 8 months this system has been set up i have dosed iodine to the tank at very low doses 4 times, i have dipped and not rinsed about 4 or 5 that i can think of. 2 times was lugols that i added and 2 times was the iodide.

 

[AquaGrizzly]

I was dosing 500 mg of vitamin c. I did not want to push it and lose some of my corals.

 

[Pufferpunk]

I am putting in 4000mg into about a 100g system for a month now & haven't lost anything--everything looks fantastic, actually. If you aren't going to dose the way I am, I don't see how you are going to see any difference. I didn't at 2000mg/day.

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

Puffer is right. Your skimmer and carbon will remove the vitamins so upping the dose will help. Also, the water itself dilutes the concentrations so again, higher doses to see affects.

 

[Paintguru]

Not that I don't believe everyone, but wouldn't this mean that we would need to dose all of our additives in these large quantities in order to see an effect? I mean, why aren't other vitamins/amino acids removed as quickly? I would think if our skimmers were that efficient, we wouldn't have anything left in our tank after a few days. Just curious why Vitamin C would be different.

 

[Pitcom]

What do coral feed on in nature that provides vitamen c?

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

Vitamin C is a strong anti-oxidant and binds quickly with free radicals. It has not been seen to have toxicity in high doses or overdoses as it is simply passed thru the organism as a waste procuct. It is extremely water soluble and breaks down very quickly.

In nature there are lipids, protiens, aminos and vitamins that are present in both zooplankton and phytoplankton. I am not sure if vitamin C is present or not, but we definitely lack the protien and vitamin quality in our foods and many of our organisms "disappear" in our tanks as they slowly starve to death.

The bottom line is "zoa melt" sucks! I have had beautiful healthy colonies die in days right next to another unaffected colony. Iodine dips are 50/50 on saving them. The mere fact that several hobbyist have dosed the vitamin C hard and have had reversing results of the "melt" is incredibly good news! I stopped buying zoas/palys because of the "melt". I just have been growing out what I already have, but now am considering getting a few hundred dollars more after the holidays.

You will not see toxicity using the vitamin. If you have a strange problem, the use of a water change and new activated carbon will remove any threat.
I and many of my reef buddies over the years have dosed Aminos and Protien supplements for both color and growth of corals.

In these videos that are 20 years old, we were dosing Joe Weider supplements for growth of soft and LPS corals.
http://www.uberfrags.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1257

The only thing I have ever done from dosing these is cause the skimmer to go crazy!!!

20 years ago, there wasn't this much instant info or easy to get Reef Made gear. Trial and Error went a long way.

 

[Pufferpunk]

When I was on chemo for Hepatitis C, I was taking 20,000mg of Vit C daily, to boost my immune system. After taking the chemo for 8 month (instead of the recommended 11) the virus was gone. It's still gone after 7 years.

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

I never new you were sick Jen, glad to hear you have beat illness and good luck with your health.
Rich

 

[Pufferpunk]

Well, it was 7 years ago... seems like a lifetime. Not something I bring up in normal conversation either. Just brought it up as an example of how much of this vitamin a body can handle.

 

[Dave12678]

Where are you guy getting the Vitamin C and what brand? Does it have any bad effects on nems or clams? I am guessing no but thought I would ask.

 

[Pufferpunk]

If you read the thread all that info is in here. But just in case you're too lazy , I have a dinner plate-size RBTA & 2 clams that are in perfect health. It's just regular, generic Vit C tablets & place into the sump, ewhere the overflow drops down & aggitates the water.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Found an excellent article: http://www.athiel.com/lib2/pguide/vitami1.html

 

[Pufferpunk]

Anyone else trying this? I'd love some positive/negative feedback. The folks over at Uberfrags & RC are going nuts about this.

 

[Pitcom]

So have you guys been monitoring your ph like the article says? I'm thinking of starting to dose the c for a bit. My fish are perfectly healthy but hey, why not.

 

[Hypertek99]

Everyone keeps saying that their zoas look better but i still haven't seen a single picture. I stopped dosing since i didn't see and results or negative effects.

 

[Pufferpunk]

My pH is exactly the same as I started, 8.2 but I dose alk every day too.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Hyper, I don't think you were using enough C. Did you read that article?

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

There is another thread that Jeni started here with pics and more opinions on the topic at Uberfrags. There is a noticeable difference once you hit the 30ppm target range.

 

[Hypertek99]

How much should i be dosing for 20gal??? I was dosing 500mg.