Struggling With First Planted Tank. Help?!

I’m new to planted tanks and I need some input plz! I have a planted 5 gallon with a betta and a tiny snail that I decided to spare. Also:
•Frogbit
•Green Crypt wendtiI
•lobelia cardinalis dwarf
•Brazilian pennywort

The lobelia is doing great, but has a lot of algae.
The crypts melted a lot at the beginning but are coming back tiny and brown?... they came very tiny but they haven’t really grown a ton
The frogbit died out at first but kinda made a rebound. Some still look yellow though.
The pennywort was looking great and then it melted really bad a week ago.

I got the plants second week of July and about a week ago I panicked and got some API Leaf Zone and dosed only like 1.5 or 2ml a week to be cautious. I definitely think it created the algae in the tank. The light is a cheap led tank light from amazon
Well I feel like my plants could be a lot better. I did freeze some Osmocote balls and stuck them in the sand. Do I need more nutrients or light to get my plants growing faster/ healthy?

 

These are current pics of my tank

 

Next time, click “edit” under the post and add the pictures that way. It keeps your post in the unanswered threads and more people can see it.

As to your post, They seem to be doing fine, just have patience. I would swap to a better fertilizer. Leaf zone only has iron and potassium, but your plants need more nutrients than that. You can use flourish comprehensive or if you can order only, Id recommend Easy Green or Thrive, both are all in one ferts.

Frogbit, pennywort and crypts are easy plants. I'm not sure why it’s turning brown, I noticed the same thing with my wendtiI green, but it’s still growing healthy. The cardinal might be a little tricker, from what i’ve read, it’s a more demanding plants but usually doesn’t do that good in its submerged form anyways.

 

They'll take their time to establish, the cardinal, like bryangar said, is tough to grow, I never had success, even in my dirted tanks with it, but you other plants should grow well as you use more fertilizers.

 

Next time, click “edit” under the post and add the pictures that way. It keeps your post in the unanswered threads and more people can see it.

As to your post, They seem to be doing fine, just have patience. I would swap to a better fertilizer. Leaf zone only has iron and potassium, but your plants need more nutrients than that. You can use flourish comprehensive or if you can order only, Id recommend Easy Green or Thrive, both are all in one ferts.

Frogbit, pennywort and crypts are easy plants. I'm not sure why it’s turning brown, I noticed the same thing with my wendtiI green, but it’s still growing healthy. The cardinal might be a little tricker, from what i’ve read, it’s a more demanding plants but usually doesn’t do that good in its submerged form anyways.

Ok I’ll try flourish first(cuz I can get it local)! So you’d say the problem is nutrients rather than light? I don’t know why but I feel like the light I have isn’t good enough for the crypts since they are small leds Are flourish roottabs any good?

 

Ok I’ll try flourish first(cuz I can get it local)! So you’d say the problem is nutrients rather than light? I don’t know why but I feel like the light I have isn’t good enough for the crypts since they are small leds Are flourish roottabs any good?

It might be the light. The one you have isn’t made for plants, but I also have crypts growing in a 5.5 gallon with barely any light.

Flourish root tabs are good for root feeding plants, but I believe they have a very little amount of macro nutrients.

 

Do you have the light on a timer? How long are the lights on?