Vitamin C dosing without skimmer

[ninjamyst]

Zoas are melting in my tank and it's the expensive ones. ARGH. I am thinking about dosing Vitamin C but I dont have a skimmer. Is it still safe to do? This is for a 12g nano tank. I may just get Brightwell Vitamin C instead of the iherb powder stuff.

 

[jrpark22000]

Curious why you think vit C is the fix? What are you water parameters, flow, lighting? I'd look for the cause of the problem before trying a "magic" bullet. Normal carbon dosing to reduce n03 and po4 requires a skimmer.

 

[SkullV]

No heavy vitamin C dosing without a skimmer, although the recommended levels from the brightwell product are fine without a skimmer. Unfortunately however, vitamin c won't do anything for you without a skimmer since all it really does is act as a weak carbon source. The chemistry experts at reef central all agree that Vit C dosing is a waste of time for anything outside of carbon dosing. It's also worth noting that none of them use it for carbon dosing, which goes to show the effectiveness of the product vs. other options.

The whole vitamin c craze was perpetuated by one very vocal reefer with no control experiment and no science to back it up. There has only been one "article" written about the subject with any sort of science behind it. It was written as a high school science project and was not peer reviewed in any way. Frankly to my knowledge, there is still no proof whatsoever that sessile marine organisms can even absorb vitamin c and utilize it in a similar manner to land based organisms.

There are two generally accepted reasons that people perceive an improvement when dosing vitamin c. The first is that the bacteria that is produced (through additional available food) by the carbon dosing serves as food for the corals. The second is that there is no real improvement but since people are watching their tanks more closely when they begin dosing and thus keep a better eye on maintenance, there is a placebo effect.

Good luck with whatever route you choose. If you do choose vitamin c, don't make any other changes to your routine and photograph often. I would love to see the results.

 

[ninjamyst]

guess i wont be vitamin C dosing anymore! i just read all these threads on this forum and other forums about it. thanks for setting me straight!

 

[Siebo]

No heavy vitamin C dosing without a skimmer, although the recommended levels from the brightwell product are fine without a skimmer. Unfortunately however, vitamin c won't do anything for you without a skimmer since all it really does is act as a weak carbon source. The chemistry experts at reef central all agree that Vit C dosing is a waste of time for anything outside of carbon dosing. It's also worth noting that none of them use it for carbon dosing, which goes to show the effectiveness of the product vs. other options.

The whole vitamin c craze was perpetuated by one very vocal reefer with no control experiment and no science to back it up. There has only been one "article" written about the subject with any sort of science behind it. It was written as a high school science project and was not peer reviewed in any way. Frankly to my knowledge, there is still no proof whatsoever that sessile marine organisms can even absorb vitamin c and utilize it in a similar manner to land based organisms.

There are two generally accepted reasons that people perceive an improvement when dosing vitamin c. The first is that the bacteria that is produced (through additional available food) by the carbon dosing serves as food for the corals. The second is that there is no real improvement but since people are watching their tanks more closely when they begin dosing and thus keep a better eye on maintenance, there is a placebo effect.

Good luck with whatever route you choose. If you do choose vitamin c, don't make any other changes to your routine and photograph often. I would love to see the results.

+ 1 I have never read anything with concrete evidence of positive results.