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["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

Some years ago, fish vet Dr. Beverly Dixon ( I hope I got the name 
right) spoke at one of our local clubs about a fish's immune system.  It 
seems that aquarium maintained fish are probably almost always under 
some kind of stress due to less than optimum water quality, unnatural 
movements next the tank (people), and numerous other factors related to 
being kept in an artificial environment.  It seems that most animals 
produce a certain amount of vitamin C, but under stress, an animal may 
not produce enough vitamin C to help bolster it's immune system. Dr. 
Dixon suggested putting vitamin C in the fish's water to help the fishes 
immune system.  I have heard her speak one more time since that time and 
the topic never got back to vitamin C so I don't know if it's something 
that she still suggests.  

Anyway--I have tried using Vitamin C to acidify my aquarium water and 
have not noted any ill effects.  I didn't use it long term, having gone 
to the cheaper (phosphate-laden) swimming pool chemicals.  Not being a 
chemist, I'n not certain of what I was putting into my fish tank with 
the Vitamin C.  Does anybody have any comments about possible good or 
bad effects of using vitamin C to acidify an aquarium?

In an earlier post, someone suggested that high phosphate levels may be 
responsible for his fish deaths.  That's the first I've heard of that 
and I find it quite interesting, because most people have a need to 
acidify water for their soft-water fish, and the chemical additives that 
are commercially available would not have been obvious to me as a 
potential danger.  Does anyone have any information regarding the 
toxicity of phosphates, or perhaps can cite more examples as described 
in the earlier post?  

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