Cycling levels help?

[AnnaBingham]

My 2 axies are in 180 (40 gallon) tank. Was doing well and then 1 week ago i had to change the sponges in my filter to new ones (it was a second hand filter and sponges had pretty much disintegrated).
Since changing the sponges the levels of ammonia etc have gone up. ive been doing a daily water change of 10-20%. Is this the right thing to do? I did a test this morning just before water change and it was :
Ammonia 0.25 ppm
Nitrate 0.25 ppm
Nitrate between 40-80 ppm
Do these levels mean the tank is on its way to being cycled again? Ive never had to change sponges before or have problems with cycling . Am i doing too much / too little water changes? Or should i continue doing daily ones till its cycled? Have no where else to keep the axies ive been removing their waste as soon as i see it and feeding earthworms so not to make a mess

 

[Skudo09]

By replacing the filter media the cycle probably crashed. You can prevent this happening again by not replacing all the media at once or leaving the old media with the new for a while so the good bacteria colonise on the new media without crashing the cycle.

It looks like it is in the process of cycling. You will need to test daily and do daily water changes to ensure the levels do not get too high (keep ammonia and nitrite below 0.5ppm max). As long as you are diligent in testing and doing water changes the axolotls should be fine.

The nitrate level is very high so I would suggest doing a water change now to bring the nitrate down to a safe level (below 40ppm).

 

[Kaini]

Seconded, you need to be doing bigger water changes while the tank re-cycles to keep the toxins down.

 

[Boomsloth]

You'll probably need to be doing at leas 30-50% water changes daily to keep the ammonia and nitrite down. Also you'll need to adjust how you normally perform water changes so once your tank is cycled you keep those nitrates below 40ppm. I Always aim at getting nitrates as close to 20ppm for my more frequent water changes (I change at least 3 times a week because of stocking) and then below 10ppm for the large changes. So for you with a cycled tank, if you test the water and see that you have 30-40ppm you should be doing a 40-50% water change. Then once a month do a larger change to keep those nitrates down. Its common for people to test the water and see 40ppm after a week and think they can leave it until the next week, but 80ppm is not okay. Test the water always before you do a water change and you'll get an idea of how much to change each time.

 

[AnnaBingham]

Brilliant thanks for all the help guys i will continue with the daily water changes and water testing, will start doing larger water changes though, hopefully tank will cycle again soon