I think thats what cliffy and I just ordered. Its a buffered powder from iherb.

Nope. You guys ordered ascorbate

"NutriBiotic, Sodium Ascorbate Crystalline Powder, 16 oz (454 g)"

I think that's the un-buffered kind in which case you would have to carefully watch your PH. Does it say its buffered ?

ill double check, but im pretty sure its the buffered one.

just checked and yes its buffered, however ill will be keeping an eye out while dosing

Prop - I did a quick check and the Ascorbic Acid is Vit. C with a pH of 2.5-3, while Sodium Ascorbate is alkaline-type of Vit. C with pH of 7.5-7.8. Wouldn't recommend you use the Acid.

Meh I did any way LOL!
Only dropped about .2 or less that I could tell directly after using it then bounced back a couple hours later.
So I guess the best advice I would give some one is to dose this as you would dose unbaked baking soda.
Well after lights on.
Of course we have to remember that size matters here though too.
IE small changes = bigger pros and cons in a small system versus my 100 g systems.

I am giving it a try..I bought Marine C...i know its probably not as strong as the powder stuff but I am not trying to fix anything in the tank..just adding some for supplement and overall health

I am glad to say that I am seeing good results from this. The zoa colony that was getting taken over by fungus is making a comeback. more and more polyps are breaking through the crusty crap and opening. After seeing a few colonies dissapear the same way, these would have been goners without the vit c. I have been caustios to not use very high doses as I'm still using the pills, but I'm at 10ppm and seeing suitable results.

Got mine today and added the first dose. Tell me whether this is correct...I added approximately 57 mg for 3g but I want to be sure I figured correctly. That is approximate because it was hard to perfectly divide a half tsp by 19. Maybe just hope, but it looks like the tiny, new anthelia is extended better already and some of the afflicted zoas have already opened just a bit. I will take pics and post them here to catalog any progress (or lack of).

Dosage is right for 5ppm. Make sure you dose twice a day, at least 8 hours apart.

And dont follow that chart all the way up to the max dose given.
In fact stay at about 15 ppm max. I went up to 20 and my montis are bleaching badly now

WHEETY WAS RIGHT !!!

Sorry to hear that Prop. Thanks for the confirmation evil.

I also used FE on this tank because flatworms were climbing all over my zoas. That was on Monday. No sign of flatworms in the past couple of days

Right about what?
I don't really know much about this, I've just asked a question or two and been following along.
Sorry to hear that Prop, hope you can get them to color up again before too long.
You gonna stop dosing?
Do you think they bleached due to Ph issues from the type of Vit. C you're using?

Yeah, I was just passing on something I read.
Never tried this myself.

Cliffy, what kinda problems are you having with zoas?
Is it in T's tank?

Yes. Some are doing great but others that previously had shown great growth have been closed up tight and in a couple cases even lost polyps. I did lugol dips on all frags three days in a row and most have shown improvement. I think it is mostly a case of them adjusting to the 70w mh after being under a 13w cf for a time. That and stress from traveling to and from the frag swap and being placed in a freshly set up tank. We haven't lost anything though The micro Susan slipped in my bag has colored up some and produced a new, tiny mouth with feeding tents. Also, I added another tiger goby and these little guys are constantly crawling across everything. I may end up putting them in my 33g as we really want this to be a nice zoa tank. The mini has almost doubled in size and seems unaffected by anything, dips included.

Using the Acid vs. the Acsorbate in your tank is making me nervous. The favia I got from you is too nice to think of you losing your other frags. The pills are generally not pure and the PH swing is troublesome. Have you ordered the Acsorbate ?

On SPS doing poorly. As I'm now 9 weeks in or so, I don't believe that's from the C but instead lowered nutrient levels. At least it is for me. I started dosing AA and feeding a TON more than I normally would and my SPS are coloring back up slowly.

So im a little confused here. How do you dose 5ppm? Do you disolve C in water? Usually with stuff thats made for aquarium it tells you on the label how much to disolve, but since this is something else, I dont get how much to disolve in how much water to get such a result as 5ppm?

Prop, why do you recommend dosing the Vitamin-C twice daily? I've been dosing mine around the same time every day (20ppm) and have had great results with some of my corals coloring up nicely and super low nutrients. The only problem I've noticed is my green button polyps are now splotchy green and brown instead of solid green, but I think my anemone may of stung them.

On my container it says 1112mg / 1/4 tsp. 19mg/gal is 5ppm (roughly). Just multiply your water volume by 19 and that will give you the total mg needed per your application.

how do you measure mg (which i assume is miligrams). I tried looking on ask.com to convert milligrams into teaspoons and it is not possible. My total water volume is 29 gallons, so if your saying multiply that by 19 that would be 551 milligrams, but how much is that?

the issue with the vit C and sps is that is can cause burnt tips. I have only been dosing 5ppm and I add it to my sump. Yes the lower nutrients will affect your sps also, so you need to increase feed to make up for it.

It's the thing I'm afraid of, it's a fun project if we can manage to monitor our system and have different experiments.

but it's a challenge to me personally, adding more chemicals and imbalance the tank environments, which mean more trouble management to me... if I need to be out of town for a few days, stop dosing V.C. and without monitor and balance parameters, it changes again... it's just not for me

In my thinking, I'll stay the most possible natual way, my system only with calcium reactor and using natural ocean water with regular water change, skip one water change won't hurt that much, and everything is still blooming under natural way, then I made my thinking - why I need to give them the "steroid" to boot up? somehow, I tried it and I just don't prefer dosing V.C. anymore, but it's just my personal view, I do have trouble to keep up all the parameters daily from my life.

Anyway, it's a fun project, but I'll still choose a simple and natural way.

Hey I understand. Its a fun project and if I dont see any positive results, Im gonna stop dosing vit c and vodka.

Going away is always an issue. I gotta get a dosing system up before I go to Cali in June.

Maybe the type Vit C and definitley the amount.

yea prop buys the ascorbe one ph is buffered to 7.1

Vitamin C has a very short life once mixed with water which is why many do it twice a day. IIRC it's only present in the water for 3-4 hours after dosed.

That would be 1/2 of 1/4 tsp (or 1/8 tsp if you have one).

This stuff has made my skimmer go nuts on my 33g. Only mushrooms in there so I'm only gonna do it two weeks on that tank to see if it helps my shrooms (as if they need any help)

Gone nuts in terms of increased skimmate production? Or something bad?

it drops my orp after dosing it. the vodka dosing makes my skimmer skim like a mofo

What's it skimming with the vodka increase? How do the organics skim out easier with vodka?

Very informative and will answer your question. I am not dosing vodka, only VC.

Its skimming the bacteria that the V-C or Vodka feed.

I don't. I just followed the chart some one else suggested only I stopped at 15ppm after noticing problems at 20ppm. This is new for me as well. If you look back in the start of the thread I said this peaked my interest and went out to buy and try.




I dosed twice via pill form and noticed problems so I did a big water change and went to dosing Vit C powder from Whole foods. " Solaray Vitamin C powder as ascorbic acid " @ 5000 mg per teaspoon.

I think if you all are having success with ascorBATE powder then My follies were crapy.. but not for nothing. Now some one else will read this some where in the states or another country and hopefully see that I used both pill form and ascorbic acid and had crap luck and they wont use it base don the results. Sooo I guess I consider my self the self appointed guinea pig on this for a good cause. Now it puts to rest any questions at all about the ascorbic powder or pill form. DO NOT USE THEM !
You get slime on your pads from the celulose in the pill form which the sps dont like, and I think the ascorbic acid burns the snot out of them because it is ascorbic acid and not ascorBATE acid.
Learn from my mistake my young padawans !
Listen to the popular vote the 1st time !


It definitelyt is not from low nutrient levels. I feed the holy snot out of my tanks at least 4 times a week. I have monster skimmers on both of my larger frag systems but I feed heavily as well. It was 100% from the pills, and ascorbic acid. USE ASCORBATE !!



Personally I think its the alcohol killing off bacteria and making it look like the skimmer is miraculously skimming better. Its really not, there is just more dead sheet to skim out.

I picked this up today from The Vitamin Shoppe, is this OK, seemed like the best I could find of what they had in-store.

http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/store/en/brow....jsp?id=SO-1188

Thats the stuff you want from what I read.

so nobody has anything else to add on this?

Well, I use this stuff.

http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?p...039798&at=0

Not a chemist so I can't help you on the difference between Sodium Ascorbate and Calcium Ascorbate.

Just ordered and used you're code Cliff'eh

Anyone got an update? Are you seeing any improvement?

So far so good for me. Not seeing any major changes in growth, but colors are great, everything is healthy, and algea is in check. I'm only dosing 10ppm though.

Its probably an increase in bacterial metabolism producing more waste into the water column- no the bacteria themselves.

Also, on the ascorbate vs. ascorbic acid- I am fairly certain they are the same thing, right?
(2R)-2-[(1S)-1,2-dihydroxyethyl]-4,5-dihydroxy-furan-3-one







ethanol dosing with proper dosages will not harm bacterial populations at all.

Ph level is different. Ascorbate is 7.1. Ascorbic is 4. This is from what I have read.

Do you mean that they media it is stored in has a different pH, or.... ?

I guess. The Nutribiotic sodium ascorbate that everyone gets is buffered to 7.1. I have seen some of the ascorbic acids that people mistakenly get have a ph of as low as 4. The pills are like this and is one reason why they are not recommended.

I have stayed with a dosage of 5ppm. My zoas have stopped declining, better color, and some have shown some growth. This is much better than the withering away I was seeing prior.

Tell me about it. It's almost heatbreaking to see them dissapear into nothing and there isn't anything you can do At least there is some hope now

Same good results here with my zoas, melting has certainly decreased. I'm finding that carbon dosing is a very delicate balance though. I went too heavy for a while on the VC. Zoas and LPS looked great and my nasty Caulerpa started to die but my SPS got real pale. So, I started to increase my feeding to get my SPS colors back. That seems to be working but the Caulerpa is now back on the move and I get some diatoms blooms. Still searching for the sweet spot but overall I'm much happier since I started dosing VC.

Update on the Vitamin C effects on acropora.
Dont us eit if you have acropora or sps ion general. Just kiss your zoanthids buy, wait until your system clears its self of what ever was killing them and start over with the zoanthids later.
It is with out a doubt a bunch of bull sheet that Vitamin C doesnt bleach your sps.
I performed a major water change and didnt dose any for almost a month. The color started comming back.
I thought.. well maybe it was some thing else and the water change too care of it ?
So I doses 2000mg last night. Today all of my sps are some what faded.
I am so pizzed off right now that people are pushing vitamin C as a wonder drug for all types of coral that I cant stand it.
It simply doesnt do anything but hurt most sps period.