shark
New member
Hi Everyone,
I'm pretty new to axolotling. I got my juvenile at a reptile show back a couple months ago. I've never had an aquarium before and the guy I bought my axolotl from just said to put in a filter and we're good to go. I wasn't aware of all this cycling stuff at the time. So here's what happened....
When I first set up the tank (10 gal), everything was fine for a couple weeks, then I began to develop and algae residue on the tank glass, I cleaned this with a magnetic sponge thing, which cleaned the glass but made a bunch of particles go into the tank. These particles eventually settled and the tank water remained clear for a couple weeks. Then I started to get a thick gooey slime on everything in the tank, so I drained the water and cleaned everything (just rinsed, no soap) and changed the filter cartridge (it was loaded up with thick slime). So now the tank was clean and at this point I was using untreated bottled spring water in the tank (that's what the guy said to use). After a few days the water started getting cloudy (a white milky kind of cloudy) but without any more slime or algae on the tank decor or glass. This progressed and got worse (more cloudy), so I began doing partial (25-50%) water changes to try to reduce this. It was at this point that I began reading about cycling and such so I got some water testing kits and tested the water. It turns out that the ammonia was sky high (around 6 ppm) with nitrate and nitrite being 0. So I started doing large partial water changes daily (40-50%) to see if that would help. After about a week of that, the ammonia hadn't gone down at all. During this time I switched from bottled spring water to tap water treated with a conditioner (Tetra Aquasafe Plus). This did nothing at all, the ammonia level remained super high. So I removed the axolotl from the tank and had him in a smaller tank with 100% daily changes. After about a week of this and trying things to get the ammonia down in the bigger tank (it was now at about 8 ppm), I gave up and drained the tank (while not changing the filter or cleaning anything, just changing out the water). So now its been one day and the ammonia in the newly cleaned tank is back up to 4 ppm (water is clear). I tested pretreated tap water and posttreated tap water and it seems that my tap has ammonia in it (around 1 ppm). I've heard that the conditioner can neutralize this but still give a positive read, so I'm not sure exactly if that's happening here. I'm just very confused by this.
I will say though, that my axolotl seems healthy, he's eating well (mostly earthworm pieces) and does not show any signs of stress at all. The water temperature stays around 66-68 degrees F.
Any insight would be appreciated as to how best to deal with the high ammonia levels.
I'm pretty new to axolotling. I got my juvenile at a reptile show back a couple months ago. I've never had an aquarium before and the guy I bought my axolotl from just said to put in a filter and we're good to go. I wasn't aware of all this cycling stuff at the time. So here's what happened....
When I first set up the tank (10 gal), everything was fine for a couple weeks, then I began to develop and algae residue on the tank glass, I cleaned this with a magnetic sponge thing, which cleaned the glass but made a bunch of particles go into the tank. These particles eventually settled and the tank water remained clear for a couple weeks. Then I started to get a thick gooey slime on everything in the tank, so I drained the water and cleaned everything (just rinsed, no soap) and changed the filter cartridge (it was loaded up with thick slime). So now the tank was clean and at this point I was using untreated bottled spring water in the tank (that's what the guy said to use). After a few days the water started getting cloudy (a white milky kind of cloudy) but without any more slime or algae on the tank decor or glass. This progressed and got worse (more cloudy), so I began doing partial (25-50%) water changes to try to reduce this. It was at this point that I began reading about cycling and such so I got some water testing kits and tested the water. It turns out that the ammonia was sky high (around 6 ppm) with nitrate and nitrite being 0. So I started doing large partial water changes daily (40-50%) to see if that would help. After about a week of that, the ammonia hadn't gone down at all. During this time I switched from bottled spring water to tap water treated with a conditioner (Tetra Aquasafe Plus). This did nothing at all, the ammonia level remained super high. So I removed the axolotl from the tank and had him in a smaller tank with 100% daily changes. After about a week of this and trying things to get the ammonia down in the bigger tank (it was now at about 8 ppm), I gave up and drained the tank (while not changing the filter or cleaning anything, just changing out the water). So now its been one day and the ammonia in the newly cleaned tank is back up to 4 ppm (water is clear). I tested pretreated tap water and posttreated tap water and it seems that my tap has ammonia in it (around 1 ppm). I've heard that the conditioner can neutralize this but still give a positive read, so I'm not sure exactly if that's happening here. I'm just very confused by this.
I will say though, that my axolotl seems healthy, he's eating well (mostly earthworm pieces) and does not show any signs of stress at all. The water temperature stays around 66-68 degrees F.
Any insight would be appreciated as to how best to deal with the high ammonia levels.
