diff --git a/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplication.html b/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplication.html
index 78e7b2674..e87c5db36 100644
--- a/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplication.html
+++ b/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplication.html
@@ -778,6 +778,7 @@
                 </label>
                 <input
                   type="number"
+                  name="replica_count"
                   class="form-control"
                   min="1"
                   max="9999"
@@ -785,10 +786,19 @@
                   style="margin-left: 20px;"
                   ng-model="ctrl.formValues.ReplicaCount"
                   ng-disabled="!ctrl.supportScalableReplicaDeployment()"
-                  ng-change="ctrl.enforceReplicaCountMinimum()"
+                  ng-change="ctrl.onChangeVolumeRequestedSize()"
+                  required
                 />
               </div>
             </div>
+            <div class="form-group" ng-if="kubernetesApplicationCreationForm['replica_count'].$invalid">
+              <div class="col-sm-12 small text-warning">
+                <ng-messages for="kubernetesApplicationCreationForm['replica_count'].$error">
+                  <p ng-message="required"><i class="fa fa-exclamation-triangle" aria-hidden="true"></i> Instance count is required.</p>
+                  <p ng-message="min"><i class="fa fa-exclamation-triangle" aria-hidden="true"></i> Instance count must be greater than 0.</p>
+                </ng-messages>
+              </div>
+            </div>
             <!-- !replica count -->
 
             <div
diff --git a/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplicationController.js b/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplicationController.js
index 01d250d04..1ae918070 100644
--- a/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplicationController.js
+++ b/app/kubernetes/views/applications/create/createApplicationController.js
@@ -488,12 +488,6 @@ class KubernetesCreateApplicationController {
     return _.uniq(storageOptions).join(', ');
   }
 
-  enforceReplicaCountMinimum() {
-    if (this.formValues.ReplicaCount === null) {
-      this.formValues.ReplicaCount = 1;
-    }
-  }
-
   resourceQuotaCapacityExceeded() {
     return !this.state.sliders.memory.max || !this.state.sliders.cpu.max;
   }