Dosing Easy green

[Scaperoot]

 This morning I was listening to a stream Cory did about a year ago, and someone asked about dosing easy green and water changes. @Cory said that if you dose Easy green after a water change, you're working against yourself. He didn't elaborate, and I'm really hoping to understand what he may have meant. I thought dosing fertilizer after a water change would be the best time, from my limited experience. Does anyone know why this would be the case? My thinking is, if I dose fertilizer a few days before a water change, I'm only giving the plants a few days of food. What am I missing? This was the Spotify episode entitled 'Does a dirty filter mean bad water quality? February 2, 2022. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

While I can’t say why Cory said that, I dose Easy Green after water changes. 3 years later all my planted tanks are still thriving. Works for me

Edited February 7, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[FLFishChik]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:04 AM, Scaperoot said:

 This morning I was listening to a stream Cory did about a year ago, and someone asked about dosing easy green and water changes. @Cory said that if you dose Easy green after a water change, you're working against yourself. He didn't elaborate, and I'm really hoping to understand what he may have meant. I thought dosing fertilizer after a water change would be the best time, from my limited experience. Does anyone know why this would be the case? My thinking is, if I dose fertilizer a few days before a water change, I'm only giving the plants a few days of food. What am I missing? This was the Spotify episode entitled 'Does a dirty filter mean bad water quality? February 2, 2022. 

Do you remember which stream it was? I’d like to listen as I’ve always dosed after a water change too

[jwcarlson]

I think he's saying that because you're removing nitrates with water change and then adding them back with Easy Green.  But there's other reasons for changing water.  I'm guessing there's some more context to what Cory is saying there.  That said, I've cut back on water changes a bit and the plants are happier.  I was struggling to keep nitrates above about 10 for awhile.  

[Scaperoot]

I found the video. It's a quick question/answer he addresses at 38:17. He says "stop changing so much water and then dosing easy green." I change water on our tanks each week, about 15-20%. Plants seem to be doing well, but our nitrates are always low when I test during the week. I'm wondering if that's something that would cause a problem down the line. Most of my plants are doing well with a few exceptions. 

 

 

[jwcarlson]

I was changing every other week and even with Easy Green seemed to need to do a lot to get above 10.  This last circuit I did a change on Saturday for the first time in a month.  Tested after and nitrates were around 10, so I dosed a bit to get to around 20.  But I also added some fish (7 small tetras and took away an adult pleco), so I'll have to see how that settles in over some time.  Plants seem to like what I'm doing better than they were.  Still topping off a bit in between, but nothing major.  I've had to dose less with less changes (which makes perfect sense).  I think the general idea of what he's saying is just don't water change to water change.  That's a hump that I'm trying to get over.  And learning what signs might point to needing to do one.

[Scaperoot]

    This is something I have doubts about, since you get different advice from different sources. Many will say you should change water weekly. Others say once a month. You see videos like the one with the owner of Ocean Aquarium, where the tanks are thriving with little to no maintenance, in contrast to much of the popular approach. I try to focus on what works best for my tanks, but when something goes wrong I come back to this.  Ironically, I was going to post a pic of our 'neglected' tank. It's a 10 gallon, which was meant to be a grow tank for plants. I've set it up with a sponge filter, but I've never done a water change. It's about 3 months old. It has some wood, a coconut shell with moss, some small stones, duck weed, and various stem plants. There's one mystery snail, bladder snails, assassin snails, and a handful of cherry shrimp. The plants are totally thriving, and the duckweed covers the top layer completely. Even the hygrophila pinnatifida is going strong, even though it died in 2 other well maintained tanks. Aside from giving the shrimp and snails some food every few days, I'm completely hands off with this one. It's not pretty to look at, but the plants couldn't be happier. This makes me wonder whether I'm doing too much in my other tanks. 

[jwcarlson]

Nothing is happening in a vacuum, I think that's the important point.  I'm always a big leery of the "no water change" crowd, I'm sure it works for some people.  But if you own a fish store and you're selling fish, you're changing water even if you're not "changing water", right?  Even if it's small amounts.  Additionally, if you've got CO2 and TONS of plants you've got more "purification" happening.  Water chemistry also has a lot to do with it.  If you've got soft, acidic water you might be able to get away with a whole lot more than someone who's got a high pH, mineral rich petri dish.  

Another important point that most of us forget is that the vast majority of hobbiest do not have heavily planted tanks.  They probably have no plants.  So much of the weekly water change advice comes from a very real place in the hobby 15-20 years ago.  It's easy to forget that era if you didn't keep fish during it or if you're a planted tank person like most of us here probably are.  Once a week might be way way way too much for your 10 gallon or for my 37 gallon because of the bioload and plant density.  But it might be way way way too little for someone who's got two 6" oscars in a 29 because they were so cute and tiny a few months ago when they picked them up at Petsmart.  I've been keeping fish on/off for about 25 years and looking back on it, I wonder how bad the water was for my oscars even though they had a 55 and a 75 (one oscar in each).

[Cory]

TLDR. People change way too much water too often. They are fanatical about changing 25-50% of water per week to remove nitrates. Then they dose easy green to replace the nitrates. People are glossing over the fact that food they feed, other products they add etc are adding minerals and nutrients to the water and would rather blindly change water and dose instead of balancing a system and supplementing what their aquarium already has with how much it needs from the easy green.

[DeadStang]

I have been doing weekly 30%-ish changes with my hard water (well), moderately basic tanks. pH from the tap is just under 7 and overnight it off-gases or something and the pH sits at 7.8-8 in 12 hours. From my tap, my nitrates are about 40 and the tanks stay 40 all week long. I have also been adding the Easy Green after a water change because the plants need more than just nitrates(?) as far as I understand. Maybe I should switch to every-other-week changes(?) -- which I wouldn't complain about! -- and Easy Green every other week as well?My tanks are heavily "planted," but only with rhizomes (Anubias and java ferns).