Dosing for Easy Green

[Alex S.]

I am currently working on growing some Vallisneria in one of my tanks, and I have been dosing easy green as a fertilizer. I have been dosing according to the bottle (1 pump per 10 gallons), but when I test my water the nitrates are pretty much unreadable. Should I keep adding easy green until my nitrates get up to around 20ppm like some recommend, or should I stick with the bottle dosing and let it do its thing? The plants seem to have some die off, but they've only been in the tank a couple of weeks so I'm sure its still getting established. I just want to make sure I ease it through the transition as much as I can.

[Pepere]

1 pump per 10 gallons contains 3 ppm nitrates.

 

Every tank is going to have different conditions.  Plant biomass is going to be different, the amount of livestock in the tank will be different, the amount of food each fishkeeper adds will be different, the amount of light in the tank, the water hardness, the presence of additional co2 added to a tank or not….and the frequency and depth of water change…does a tank have floating or emergent plants or just submerged plants… presence or absence of nitrates in source water

All of these factors will affect how many ppm of nitrate the plants in the tank will need added per week in the form of fertilizers…

And in addition to nitrate, the plants are also consuming potassium and phosphorous as well as micronutrients…   Fish food and fish waste as it decays and undergoes nitrification adds nitrates to the tank and phosphates but not potassium…

 

If despite dosing to instructions on the bottle, you have little to no discernible nitrates in your tank, I would re evaluate your testing method to make sure you are following the instruction exactly and the reagants have not expired.  Perhaps even prepare a sample of water that you dose to 20 ppm nitrate and test it…  ie 1 pump of easy green in 1 gallon of water should dose that gallon to 30 ppm.

it seems extremely  obvious to me that 1 pump per 10 gallons on low lit tanks per week, and 1 pump per 10 gallons twice a week on high lit tanks is simply not going to account for all of the variables at play. 
 

I also recognize that writing detailed instructions on the label to dose according to tested nitrate levels becomes problematic as well.   I doubt the vast majority of fishkeepers in the hobby test nitrates even monthly.  
 

If you look at my tank, it is very densely planted.  I inject co2 to 30 ppm. I have two Finnex Planted Plus ALC lights running at high intensity with 2, 4 hour photo periods per day and I feed lightly once per day. I conduct a 50% water change weekly.

My method of fertilizing, lighting, co2 injection, plant trimming and thinning gives fairly lush growth with low algae growth.  (Yes, I remove a few older leaves that plants sacrifice with algae growing on it every few days…)

 

[Pepere]

Bear in mind, some fishkeepers who have sparsely planted tanks, and heavy livestock load who feed and or overfeed twice daily do a waterchange once their nitrates rise to 50 ppm to lower them to 25 ppm.  
 

Do you think their fertilizer regimen should be the same as mine?  Should a subjective analysis of whether the tank is high lit or low lit be the only deciding factor on weekly fertilizer addition?  What objective criteria are used to define low light verses high light?

[Pepere]

Realistically if your tank is sparsely planted, if you dose it up to 20 ppm, it might not need any other dosing all week.  
 

and if you dont do a 50% water change it might not need much more dosing to boost it back up, at least until the Val establishes itself in the tank and takes off…

[JoeQ]

Also if you are using the test stips be aware that they are not as accurate as liquid tests. If you don't have liquid tests it wouldn't be a bad idea to have your water tested by a 3rd party for comparison.

[Alex S.]

On 8/17/2023 at 8:32 AM, Pepere said:

Realistically if your tank is sparsely planted, if you dose it up to 20 ppm, it might not need any other dosing all week.  
 

and if you dont do a 50% water change it might not need much more dosing to boost it back up, at least until the Val establishes itself in the tank and takes off…

Thank you so much! Thank makes a lot more sense now! I appreciate the info! 

On 8/17/2023 at 9:44 AM, JoeQ said:

Also if you are using the test stips be aware that they are not as accurate as liquid tests. If you don't have liquid tests it wouldn't be a bad idea to have your water tested by a 3rd party for comparison.

That’s a great point! I need to invest in something like that. I only have strips right now and I’ve wondered just how accurate they are. 

[TOtrees]

Have you considered root tabs? Vals are pretty heavy root feeders, I believe. 

[Alex S.]

On 8/17/2023 at 10:19 AM, TOtrees said:

Have you considered root tabs? Vals are pretty heavy root feeders, I believe. 

I use root tabs as well! I’ve read some places they feed from the roots, but other places suggest they prefer liquid fertilizer. I’ll use more root tabs as well and see if that helps!