Question: Ammonia and Nitrate problem

Just a quick update, ammonia is still at 1.0 despite changing the water once a day. I don't know what to do, should I change more then 20% of the water? Also, I'm going away for the week end tomorrow (friday) so would it be safe to leave her in the fridge, or should I put her back in the tank? There will be no one at home for the whole week end.
 
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WOW that is a less than ideal situation.

If it were ME I'd change about 50% of the water in the tank to get the ammonia down (may need to change more depending on the test results) then place Gem in the tank without the fridge water having left her out of the fridge to warm up to room temp. She will be safer in the the tank with the larger volume of water than she will be in the fridge in the tiny amount of water and 2 days of her own waste. The added water volume in her tank will dilute the ammonia from her waste enough for her to be ok for a couple of days.

You'll need to make sure you change some water when you get home as I suspect the ammonia will be on the higher side when you return.

Hopefully since your tank has been going for a little while now it is almost up to Phase 2 which would mean the ammonia levels will be kept in check. It would mean that nitrite levels would rise but it is less toxic to Gem than Ammonia is so should be ok for the time you are away.
 
If you have that much ammonia always do water changes, even if its more than 20%. a 20% water change is a guideline to keep people from constantly changing too much of their water which will stress out your axolotl. BUT having ammonia/nitrite in your tank will stress them even more, so do a large water change if you have bad water
 
I changed half of the water last night and the ammonia is still reading at 1.0! Should I try some ammonia treatment from a shop in the tank?
 
I wouldn't advise in using ammonia neutralizer. How big is your tank? Having that much ammonia seems kind of ridiculous, your bioload may be too large. Ammonia removers just change the type of ammonia to a safe kind, but your beneficial bacteria cannot use that kind of ammonia. I would just do large water changes until the tank has no ammonia. Make sure you dechlorinate all of the water going into your tank. You don't want to have to recycle your tank again. Also keep your filter running all the time, and if you have to clean it, clean it in dechlorinated water.
 
Did you add any more of Gem's fridge water? Have you tested your tap water or whatever you are using for ammonia?
You can stop adding her fridge water for a couple of days.

Changing 1/2 the water with a reading of 1.0 (assuming 0 ammonia in your replacement water) should have dropped it to at least 0.5 which is still too high and would require another large water change but the point is it should have dropped considerably.
So there must be ammonia coming from somewhere to STILL be having a 1.0 reading. We need to find where and eliminate it.

If it's in your tap water then you will need to look into a commercial ammonia remover OR a more complete water conditioner/dechlorinator that has the ammonia remover built in.

If you're already using a water conditioner I would also guess that you have cholramines in your water. The dechlorinator will break apart the chloramine molecule which then binds to some of the Hydrogen in your water to make ammonia giving you ammonia where there wasn't before :(

Your tank will still cycle and gem will produce more ammonia for the bacteria if you need to use an ammonia remover it's just not ideal but in some cases very necessary :(
 
No, I havn't added more of gem's fridge water, yes I've tested my tap water and it had no ammonia and perfect ph. I was using a dechlorinator with ammonia remover built in, but i didnt need it for my tap water as it turns out. I will continue water changes, and take some water samples to the shop and see what they have to say and offer, because I can always say no to it.
 
Stop using the dechlorinator with ammonia remover built in. My tanks recently became uncycled because I was unaware my dechlorinator had ammonia remover in them. I will say it seems harder to remove the "detoxified" ammonia than regular ammonia as I still have quite a bit of ammonia in my tanks, and I've been doing large water changes since I realized it yesterday. The detoxified ammonia will still register in ammonia tests, so the best thing you can do is to get a new dechlorinator, and do water changes until the ammonia is down to zero, and then start the cycling process over again.
 
Changed 50% of water and the ammonia went down to 0.25, so I put Gem back in her tank for the w/e and she's doing fine. I will continue to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate everyday for the next few days or week. Thank you to everyone that pitched in and helped me out.
 
What are the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate levels supposed to be?:confused:
 
don't worry about ph, but it should be between 6-8. Nitrite should be 0, and nitrate should be less than 40ppm's
 
should always be 0 as well
 
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