All My Corals Freaked Out After Vitamin C Dose

masterbeat · 05/25/2017, 07:42 AM

Hey all,

The Vitamin C dosing thread is old, so I'm starting a topic to ask might notice and comment on my fresh experience with dosing Vitamin C in a 20 gal Nano. After reading up on all the forums including the 20 page split threads about it, I decided to take the plunge and dose to help with a rapidly melting Zoa colony. I started yesterday with the Brightwell Vitamarin C then switched today to buffered Sodium Ascorbate from iHerb as recommended by everyone in those threads.

What I'm concerned about and wondering if anyone else dosing experienced this is that, within 5 - 10 minutes of dosing, all my corals went nuts! I have two bubble corals that rapidly expanded in crazy shapes (really inflated), then after that they rapidly closed up and pulled everything super tight into their skeletons. I have a branching hammer and a torch coral that retracted and pulled all the polyps inside really fast, and all the zoa colonies glossed over. Even the mushrooms inflated then pulled themselves in.

Here are some pics so you can see the bubbles (lower left) in their skeletons, the hammer and torch (top center) all retracted, etc.

The Vitamin C is all I dosed. They did this just a bit with the Brightwell and now major craziness after the powder. I dosed for 30ppm for a 20 gal tank (putting in about 1500 mg total).

I find it crazy that I experienced this immediately yet no one seems to mention anything like this happening in all the threads and pages and pages of people talking about doing this.

Most say over-dosing is near impossible, and I don't think the dose I described was anywhere near an overdose.

What would cause this and should I be alarmed that everything went crazy and retracted, like REALLY retracted, into itself? We're about 3 hours later and everything is still in hiding.

Thanks!

dublo8 · 05/25/2017, 01:38 PM

Where did you add it? I dosed VC for years and I alway dosed into the return section of my sump. I wonder if some of the granules got onto the corals and they didn't like it. Also, I never dose what things recommend. I always cut it in half and start from there.

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Djones22 · 09/24/2017, 11:03 AM

Hey I just started dosing yesterday and my dank is a 29g but I have no sump or refugium. I experienced the same symptoms as you I dose 4000mg 2 times per day. And yes you cannot overdose. Their bodies assuming, like ours, willvonly take up a certain amount of usable vit c and the rest unused will return to waste product. So the excess vit c will either degrade by light ect used up by bacteria carbon uptake or be pumped out by protein skimmer. Remember vit c is small, water soluble, and if your using ascorbic acid slightly acidic. I use ascorbic acid as it is readily available for use by cells but the best thing to do if your worried about ph is to use a 5ml sample of water test ph calculate amount of vit c to add t5ml add stir wait test oh again and see how much it drops. Sodium activate is buffered with the sodium so you need not worry about ph changes but is not as readily available for cell uptake. Proteins and enzymes must now break it up into a ascorbic acid for cell uptake.

This is all based ome, science( chemistry, biology) so use your best judgement to make you feel comfortable but these are the facts.

05/25/2017, 01:38 PM	#2
dublo8 Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Morgan Hill, Ca Posts: 3,225	All My Corals Freaked Out After Vitamin C Dose Where did you add it? I dosed VC for years and I alway dosed into the return section of my sump. I wonder if some of the granules got onto the corals and they didn't like it. Also, I never dose what things recommend. I always cut it in half and start from there. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk __________________ 10g IM fusion. Zoa and SPS dominant, Apex monitored, Ai Prime, MP10, sicce return.

09/24/2017, 11:03 AM	#3
Djones22 Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2017 Posts: 11	Hey I just started dosing yesterday and my dank is a 29g but I have no sump or refugium. I experienced the same symptoms as you I dose 4000mg 2 times per day. And yes you cannot overdose. Their bodies assuming, like ours, willvonly take up a certain amount of usable vit c and the rest unused will return to waste product. So the excess vit c will either degrade by light ect used up by bacteria carbon uptake or be pumped out by protein skimmer. Remember vit c is small, water soluble, and if your using ascorbic acid slightly acidic. I use ascorbic acid as it is readily available for use by cells but the best thing to do if your worried about ph is to use a 5ml sample of water test ph calculate amount of vit c to add t5ml add stir wait test oh again and see how much it drops. Sodium activate is buffered with the sodium so you need not worry about ph changes but is not as readily available for cell uptake. Proteins and enzymes must now break it up into a ascorbic acid for cell uptake. This is all based ome, science( chemistry, biology) so use your best judgement to make you feel comfortable but these are the facts.