How much Easy Green liquid fert should I be dosing?

[awong918]

It's only a betta (and ramshorn snails) in a 5-gallon. My nitrates are pretty much always 0. 20 drops of Easy Green liquid fert hardly raises the nitrates from 0, and I'm worried about overdosing too much of the other ingredients and possibly harming my betta (or is that not a worry?).

My Amazon Swords have holes on the leaves. At first, I thought it was the snails, but some of the circles look too uniform to be left by snails.

My Java Ferns have small black dots on them. Even the newer leaves.

Do I have too many plants to be dosing just 10-20 drops (instruction recommends 10 weekly for a 5 gallon)?

Edited March 13 by awong918

[Ladette]

Amazon sword are root feeders have you tried root tabs? Mine were suffering added some root tabs and it turned around quickly. 

[lefty o]

from the pic, id say you are pretty close to correct doseage. plants look pretty good.

[Jeff]

I know it's one squirt per 10 gallons. One squirt has to be the solution for anything under 10. 

I agree with @lefty o your plants look great!

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/16/2024 at 9:54 PM, Jeff said:

I know it's one squirt per 10 gallons. One squirt has to be the solution for anything under 10. 

I agree with @lefty o your plants look great!

One squirt is 1 mL. You could always get a pipette or dropper and dose 0.5 mL. But I also agree with @lefty o that you look pretty dialed in at the moment anyway.

[Bev C]

 Your tank plants are pretty yes a pipette or eye dropper does wonders my bottle pump stop working .... I use a pipette that hold 1 ml .. I use one ml.. For my ten gallon I  have low light plants 

1 pump - 1ml   - for every  10 gallons

 the bottle says 1 time a week for low light plants and 2 times a week for medium and high light plants 

 I was having trouble with my swords when I started out they had holes I was told hole is usually due to a potassium deficiency I am no expert 

 I use Easy Green Liquid and Root Tabs both   and Easy Green Iron, I use the root tabs on only my Crypts and Swords when I started using both the liquid and tabs on my Crypts and Swords it helped them allot, and they are growing lots better Crypts and Sword needs plenty of nutrients 

 Sorry can not be help with the Java Fern I kill everyone I get I stop buying them after trying each kind it hates me 

Edited March 19 by Bev C

[Firestorm_1976]

It seems that nitrates is a controversial topic. It sounds like 10 ppm and below is not worthy even talking about as those levels appear to be pretty much harmless in planted tanks. When it comes to higher levels than that, it does appear to be a controversial topic with some studies show some minor negative impacts, such as stunted growth and somewhat reduced life span. I personally would not even think twice under 10 ppm. I will copy/paste you some of the resources that I saved for myself on the topic of nitrates.

Articles

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/5-4-1-nitrate-in-depth/?fbclid=IwAR1v2K_HTO82BLrMtu4dZ9ZCgS1hyKXZ7ucBxiuVSRWQ2DvHy_g8j8Gx_kM#:~:text=At%20the%20highest%20nitrate%20concentration,influence%20tilapia%20production%20in%20RAS

http://www.aquaworldaquarium.com/articles/EffectOfNitrate.html?fbclid=IwAR01Mnj0ZFFR6M3bkJoqUq5YzzKO6d87M0MWIm-Zd5pEeaq_btNAjgu0Xgo

Studies

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6977012/?fbclid=IwAR2jDnP1Av0uXmixj5t0G2hCj_HiDeNDcwscrGN9f0aNPEBBjofuNMWb-SQ#:~:text=Independent%20exposure%20to%20elevated%20nitrate,growth%20experiment%20(Table%202)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144860914000041?fbclid=IwAR3WxwpwJCeiJ9o7k8Ryn3dpdRQkXzuIBz0g7MzCG9U9R81FdNcMmOfiN2Q

[Tony s]

On 3/13/2024 at 4:33 PM, awong918 said:

My nitrates are pretty much always 0

yeah, that's a problem. nitrates are your primary fertilizer. not the preferred one. that would be ammonia, but your bacteria consume most of that. You will need to run your nitrates from 10-20 ppm for a planted tank. just for the sake of having enough fertilizer. some people prefer nitrates as high as 50 for their plants. but that can lead to excess algae, which are plants. just annoying ones to some people. one of the best ways to determine how much easy green, is to do your normal water change. wait a while. test your water for nitrates and bring the levels back to 20.

[Tony s]

try this video. towards the end Irene speaks on easy green

 

[Bsquared]

I would continue with your current dosing of easy green and try adding some root tabs around your sword to help it out. Java ferns always have small black dots on the underside of the leaves so I wouldn't be too concerned about that. Your tank looks great!