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Bettas and plant fertilizers

Yes certainly. If they contain ammonia or urea salts then these are toxic. Glutaraldehyde is something I would expect to damage fish in very high concentrations. Perhaps it would be betta if you were specific?
 
Yes, well. I started dosing my nano aquarium with Flourish collection (as per indications): Flourish, Flourish Excel and Flourish Advance and NA Thrive (for ow tech aquariums)
So the context:
In the Fluval Flex 9 gallon (noCO2) I built a nice aquascape. After three months of aquarium stablishment, my fast growing plants stoped growing and were getting limp and thin stems and, in general, plants looked a bit yellow and stoped growing and did not look as green and lush.
So I started dosing once a week with each different fertilizer to cover any deficiency. The forth week I applied for the first time NA Thrive. And I think that did it. My Betta started to gasp within the hours following the application.No other fish showed sings of distress.
So I removed him put it and transferred to new aquarium I recently started. After 24 hours he is doing great.
That is when my question arose.
 
Snap. I have that tank, with a betta.
Lighting can yield weak growth on a few stem plants, but it is hardly worth the bother.
Crypts, mosses and Monte carlo can make slow and weak growth. I know people that cram these tanks with plants and claim after just a few months that they work, but a long-term approach is more challenging.
NA Thrive and Flourish have advertised the correct nitrogen salts. Are their mixes validated or verified, I doubt. Only a few years ago we were eating horse meat advertised as beef, and we had mad cow disease due to livestock cannibalism - the producers got away with short cuts. I don't know who mixed your fertilizers, and personally I prefer to mix my own. But a more pragmatic approach would be far lower dosing; because without much light there is little point in going all out.
ANSWER = Gasping is usually a sign that oxygen has suddenly depleted. However, hemoglobin combines with some anions, effecting the hemoglobin-oxygen equilibrium. This is probably not due to an ionic strength effect but to the combination of anions with hemoglobin. The relationships are so complex that it is not possible to deduce one cause. But if I had to bet, I would say this occurred due to the fertilizer (as opposed to toxic shock, direct oxygen depletion, or gill irritation).
I presume that you were doing weekly 50% water changes.
Algae control is done by shrimp and with a credit card. I will never use Excel unless I get into the hospital floor cleaning industry, or suddenly want to end it all with a death cocktail. Children and Excel do not mix.
A smart upgrade would be one of those small 95 gram CO2 systems. I was going to try it on my Flex but didn't fancy any more work.
 
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Aaaahh! Ok. Got it!
No I was not doing the 50% water change because last time I did, all my 5 Amano died. I guess the drastic change in PH did it. So I only go for 25%
And when I put fertilizer I usually put the minimum amount they prescribe. But the NA makes one big squirt and something there was toxic to him as you said.
So I guess putting fertilizers is an overkill for that tank.... but plants had started to get green again. This is my tank. And there is Inka. I have Fluval Substrate.
Thanks a lot for you precious advice and I might try the CO2.
 

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