Crashed Cycle?

[ClockworkParrot]

So yesterday evening I did my usual tank cleaning that I do every 3 weeks. I did a 50% water changed, scrubbed the walls, cleaned off all the plants in a bucket of water from the tank.
Late last night I noticed my females gills didnt look too well and looked to be filled with white fluffy debris and the filament looks smaller which it wasnt like before I started cleaning. I was able to brush some off but didnt want to bother her or damage her gills. I accidentally kicked up some sand when trying to vacum out the bottom and both of my guys were thrashing for a bit after I was all done. I dont know if debris is messing the slime coat on her gills making them look smaller or if she has just been unusually inactive at the time because of the cleaning so they appear smaller and I am just paranoid. She ate a nightcrawler fine but my male refused food for the first time.
Seeing that she didnt look her usual self and he didnt want to eat I did a water check which I usually dont do until around 24 hours after cleaning to give everything time to settle.

These were my levels:
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: looked to be between .25-.5
Nitrate: around 20pp
Temp: 64 deg F

I havent had ammonia in my tank in over a year. The only thing that I did different was I shut my chiller and pump off for about 10 minutes so I could use an air can to dust out the chiller. I did dechlorinate each bucket of water I put back in.

I did another test of the ammonia this morning and its at .25. Im worried about gill damage and I am going to be gone from saturday morning til late sunday night. I dont know if I should do another small water change before I go to bed tonight or just give the bacteria some more time to level out.

 

[Icyriah]

Unless you changed to brand new sponges or left the filter and cooler out of the tank for some time without soaking them in some of the water, you haven't crashed the cycle. It's also important to know the size of the tank they're in. In a year, axolotls can grow much larger, and they're quite messy, so if you have both of them in something smaller than a 20 gallon, you may not have enough bacteria to keep up with their output. I'm not familiar with any diseases with axolotls aside from very basic stress signals, but check on them tomorrow morning and see if she's looking worse. The cleaning might have just stressed the male out so he didn't want to eat, and let's hope the fluffy gills is just from the cleaning!