Treating with Vitamin C

[Pufferpunk]

I know I have at least 2 in my 90g that I've seen but they are just touching the surface of the turf algae problem I have in there.

madadi, I'm surprised with the little you have dosed & the short time you've been dosing, that you see such a jump in chemistry. I've not seen any. I bet you test way more often than I do though.

[madadi]

my aquacontroller shows any drop in pH or ORP right away. i am a reefgeek after all i hate testing with chemicals, its like doing laundry!

[madadi]

ya i figured does were the turbos but sometimes others are called turbos also, usually the astrea snails.

ok here is what i found:
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble nutrient. Although fairly stable in acid solution, it is normally the least stable of vitamins and is very sensitive to oxygen. Its potency can be lost through exposure to light, heat, and air, which stimulate the activity of oxidative enzymes. It is easily oxidised in air. thats why it drops ORP so quickly.

and my theory: lol
might be good for the corals if it gets to it before it reacts with oxygen in the water. it might drop levels of O2 in the water. thats why it might be dropping the pH because its shifting the O2 - CO2 concentration to the acidic side by reacting with oxygen. NOT SO GOOD IN OUR CLOSED SYSTEMS. at some point, in high doses, it might react with so much oxygen that it might suffocate the animals in the tank?

im going to dose it SLOWLY in the main tank hoping that it will get absorbed better by the corals because it has to travel trough less water from the sump. also, if i dose it slow instead of dropping a pill in at once, it might avoid shifts in the O2 concentration or bicarbonates, whichever vitamin C is reacting with.

[b16drag]

Wonder if the skimmer skims some of it out...

[geoxman]

I am not using a pill I am using pure ascorbic acid from GNC in powder form. 1 Tsp is 2200mg. an 8oz jar was $14 and there is no other ingredient other than rose hips. It is dissolved within seconds in the aquarium.

[madadi]

nice, once i finish the pills ill get that.

[madadi]

nice, once i finish the pills ill get that.

[Pufferpunk]

Wouldn't it be better if it dissolved slowly?

[madadi]

i dunno which would be better, dissolving a pill slowly in the sump or adding a pill or powder to some RO water, dissolve it completely, and drip that vitamin C rich water into the tank slowly

tonight i just dissolved a pill in a small jar of RO water. after i let it sit for couple hours i wanted to make sure that the vitamin C is still potent even though it was inside the water for a long time and it had time to react with oxygen. anyway, i added the water with the vitamin C in it and it still dropped my ORP to the same 160mV as before when i added the pill directly to the tank. i dunno if that means the vitamin C is still good but i will disolve it from now on in a separate container with RO water and drip it slowly into the tank. this time i didn't drip slowly, i just added the whole glass of water to the main tank.
im hoping if i drip it slow, it wont drop my pH and ORP as much as before. ill experiment in the morning, tonight i already added the vitamin C. my eyes might be playing tricks on me but my zoa seem bigger and my sps more colorful and the polyps extension looks better then ever. this looks promising, thanks Jeni. i just want to do all i can to avoid any big drops in alkalinity and/or pH.

[mnestroy]

On the subject of ORP I have noticed some craziness with my ORP since I've added Vit C. I thought it was my probe going bad/old.

I usually keep it around 320ish but at random times I've seen it drop a ton! I've seen it read out around 90.

Could be my probe but since others mentioned it, I figured I'd throw this info out.

[Pufferpunk]

So tell me the bad part about the ORP dropping. Is this something I need to worry about? It seems to go back after a short while. Is that kind of fluctuation worse?

[geoxman]

Puffer-how does everything look since you started? Do you think the fluctuation is making your corals suffer? Do they looked stressed out? As I stated before I really do not nor have ever really cared about ORP. Do I know what it is? Yes but I do not monitor it.
I did notice a drop in PH when I dose, so every other day I use a "Buffer" as Thiel recommended. As a result of doing the buffer every other day I do not dose the Alk two part that day because the "buffer" will raise Alk as well. The Alk PH and Ca are all in check.

I would monitor your PH and Alk and if they stay good then I would not worry, but it is not my tank, it is yours.

I will not be losing any sleep over ORP as long as everything is looking as good as they have been and my levels stay in check.

I do find it odd that Thiel only recommended to do this for only 14 days?? I wonder why that is, if the vitamin is broken down so quickly by our systems? good luck


Madadi-how did the drip work out??

[Pufferpunk]

I found the 14 days odd myself. I stopped treating for 1 week, when I went in for surgery, just to see what would happen (had been treating for 2 months by then) & found my Tubb's blues closing. It took another 2 weeks for them to look good again. I just found a bunch ot baby polyps on them!

I se absolutely no adverse affects in the treatment I have been doing, although since folks have been stating the ORP problem, I did stick with my origional doses of 2000mg, 2x/day. I really saee no reason to up that, since everything looks great.

BTW, the folks at Club Zoa are being extremely skeptical & are looking for before & after pics. Does anyone have some?

[Troy the Nomad]

Any kind of pics would be nice. Even if you only after pics

[Pufferpunk]

That should be easy--give me an hour or so.

[ZOAKEEPER]

Well, been following for awhile now. I guess I'm in. Will post any differences and monitor. Wish me luck!!!

[geoxman]

good luck zoakeeper you should be fine just watch the PH and Alk.

It is ashame that I do not have before and after pictures. I did this on a whim after reading your post. I have stated that my tank was very healthy but the idea intrigued my so *** lets see what happens.
The colors look good and polyp extension is good.
If the people at club zoa are so skeptical post your pictures there as well.
If someone wants to see my tank there is thread a few down of mine.
I will keep dosing as I cant see antioxidents being bad for any thing.

I am at 2000mg twice a day as well.
Is anyone other than me using the pure ascorbic acid powder and not the vitamins with the fillers? The reason I am asking is because I am using a better grade C that has not been heated up and lost some of its umph and stuffed with junk. good luck

[Pufferpunk]

I am so sorry I sold my drip system... I think I'd be doing like Madadi plans & drip the diluted powder throught the day.

[geoxman]

what about an IV that you could get at any medical supply place? I use to use them to measure out my two part before I went to a pump

[madadi]

well guys here is what happend with the slow drip. it wasnt as affective as i had hoped in preventing the ORP drop, but at least i didnt notice a pH drop this time.

TIME 00min ORP 356 pH 8.13
TIME 15min ORP 180 pH 8.13
TIME 30min ORP 159 pH 8.13
TIME 45min ORP 149 pH 8.13
the drip finished in an hour and 15min after the last reading. the ORP didn't drop anymore. it only climbed slowly back up. pH didn't change at all.

unfortunately it didn't help with the ORP but pH didn't budge at all so i was happy about that. i will continue to do it this way. i dissolved a pill in 250ml of RO water over night. in the morning i set my drip rate at 125ml per hour so it finished dripping in two hours. ill do this twice a day, 1000mg in the morning 1000mg at night. im exited to see what happens after 14 days. i took before pictures. if there is major difference i will post after pictures.
everyone should give it a try, no bad results so far only good ones. Jeni's tank looks great, specially her zoa. They were HUGE!

[Pufferpunk]

You might want to double that dosage next week.

[madadi]

i will sooner, i didn't realize it was 2000mg X 2. i will post results of the drip if its different.

[Pufferpunk]

Here are a couple of threads I found interesting (old & new):

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...ight=Vitamin+C
and
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...ight=Vitamin+C

The vitamin C may well have driven bacteria growth and nutrient reduction

I have to tell you guys, my nitrate has never been lower--barely detectable around .2 (lighter than that even), after not doing a WC in over 3 weeks & having a tank packed with coral & plenty of fish. Generally is hovers at around 5.

Randy Holmes-Farley said:

It will drop ORP through the floor. That likely is not a problem, but expect to see it happen if you measure ORP.

Glad to hear that it's not a problem. That was starting to worry me a little. It's the reason I only dosed 6000 for a couple of days & went back to 4000. I don't measure ORP (heck a day ago, I didn't even know what it was) so I didn't want to take any chances.

At least Randy didn't poo-poo it totally. I guess folks will continue to be skeptical, until their see real differences in before/after pics or try it themselves. Did anyone see the pics at Uber frags?

[madadi]

i tested my alk today and it was 7-8dKH. its been 10 for the past year or so. i guess even with kalk and calcium reactor i still have to add some backing soda to help it stay leveled since i added vitamin C. its only been 2 days. is that kinda low or should i raise it back up to 10?

[FragMan07]

Here's my photo proof of the Vitamin C working in my tank.. Every single Zooanthid in this tank was inexplicably not opening 2 weeks ago.

You'll notice my Orange Zoo's, which have been closed for over a month, finally starting to open up their Orange tips. My Green Zoa's are now fully opening as are my Pinks. My yellow Zoa's are not only fully opened, their actually spreading again.

I may have even gotten a picture of my Damsel fish smiling for the camera. Sorry for the quality

My current dosing is 1250 mg twice a day.