Can I use Jamieson vitamins in my nano?

ess · #1 03-11-2013, 08:33 PM

It's a 10 gallon tank. Planning to buy some sort of supplement for my corals next time I visit the lfs. For now I was just curious if I could add Jamieson brand vitamins C and Calcium and if yes how much? Or is it a bad idea lol

mrhasan · #2 03-11-2013, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ess

It's a 10 gallon tank. Planning to buy some sort of supplement for my corals next time I visit the lfs. For now I was just curious if I could add Jamieson brand vitamins C and Calcium and if yes how much? Or is it a bad idea lol

Why would you want to add supplements and calcium to your tank? Is your tank lacking in calcium?

I don't know about vitC but Jamieson doesn't look like a brand for aquarium supplements.

Don't get fooled by all those "add and see your coral bloom" adds by supplements. Only dose if you tank requires it

For a 10 gallon, you can pretty much do weekly WC and have great results unless you stuff like 30 hungry corals which sucks up all the goodies from the water before you do WC.

And yah, do mention what sort of corals you got along with the big three numbers and lighting.

PFoster · #3 03-11-2013, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrhasan

For a 10 gallon, you can pretty much do weekly WC and have great results unless you stuff like 30 hungry corals which sucks up all the goodies from the water before you do WC.

Agreed 100%

For a nano this side just do regular WC's.
If your levels are decreasing still do larger WC's.

There is a lot more in salt than just ca, alk, mg that is replaced by wc's!

FragIt Dan · #4 03-11-2013, 10:53 PM

I tried dosing Amino Acid supplement pills from a vitamin store to my tank a few years back. My skimmer pulled REALLY smelly stuff out of my tank for a few hours after each time I did. I stopped after a few days. The suspension, or pill, that the desired dosing substance (i.e. Ca or VitC) comes in might not be very good for the tank. I suspect VitC might be in a sugary substance for some of them and could OD your tank on carbon, causing a bacterial bloom. This is just one possible way you could mess things up

.

+1 on the previous posts, although I have heard VitC is great for Zoas and is not something you will get from water changes. At 10G, paying the $15 for a commercially available product at the lfs that will last you years in that size of a tank might be a better choice should you want to go that way

.
Dan

daniella3d · #5 03-12-2013, 03:55 AM

You should be using sodium ascorbate not the vitamine C pills from the store (acid ascorbic) because those are too acidic to use in our tanks.

I buy my vitamine C from Iherbs.com, sodium ascorbate. It cost around 15$ for a bottle and it last for a year or more.

But why would you want to dose vitamine C?? I only dose it to help prevent my zoanthids from melting and it is helping a little bit but yeah, it does act as a carbon source and dosing must be started very low as it could crash your tank with a bacteria bloom. Althought the sodium acsorbate does not contain sugar, so it is better.

If you dose any carbon source and see a white film form on glass and stuff, you must stop dosing.

I would never dose in a 10 gallons tank, unless it is a hospital tank for zoanthids...way too unstable for this type of experiment.

ess · #6 03-13-2013, 04:12 AM

Thank you everyone for the informative answers. I appreciate it

One of my zoa colonies mysteriously stopped opening for two days. All my other corals (a few softies, lps, and more zoas/palys) seemed perfectly normal so I was kind of stumped as to why this could be. My parameters as far as the "big three numbers" are all at 0. I don't have a test kit for calcium but I think I might just invest in one instead of guesstimating in the future. The tank is under 30 watts of 50/50 compact flourescents at the moment but I've ordered a 72 watt t5 fixture which should arrive within the next two weeks as I know the current lighting is pretty ghetto. Anyway so I tried googling possible reasons for zoas not opening as well as potential solutions, and dosing vitamin C popped up a few times. This is where the idea came from. I checked my medicine cabinet at home and saw that I had Vitamin C and Calcium by Jamieson's. I read in a few places of people using drugstore vitamins in their tanks, but felt unsure about it so I thought hey I'll just ask the canreef crew lol
After reading some of the replies to this thread, I did not add either supplement to my tank. I did however move the zoas to my extra 5 gallon tank under 40 watt t5's. Strangely enough they opened up almost right away. I have three guesses as to why this could be: 1) They need more light 2) There was some little pest irritating them which maybe got shook off during the transfer between tanks 3) They're weird

subman · #7 03-13-2013, 04:20 AM

what are the tank inhabitants?

PFoster · #8 03-13-2013, 04:29 AM

Anytime you have corals that stop opening like this or your parameters are off, or you suspect something isnt quite right just do a water change.
Its the simplest, fastest and most cost effective way to get your tank back on the right track.

ess · #9 03-13-2013, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by subman

what are the tank inhabitants?

6 turban snails
1 cleaner shrimp
1 bangai cardinal
2 ocellaris clownfish
hairy mushrooms
xenia
neon candycane
zoas zoas zoas

ess · #10 03-13-2013, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PFoster

Anytime you have corals that stop opening like this or your parameters are off, or you suspect something isnt quite right just do a water change.
Its the simplest, fastest and most cost effective way to get your tank back on the right track.

Yeah I did about a 30% water change after that because I was all paranoid