Maggie.D
New member
I’ve had an axolotl since October. Around the middle of April, a child somehow managed to drop an incense cone into his aquarium. My axolotl has been tubbed and I completely redid the tank (took out all the water, replaced the sand, rinsed out the filters, cleaned his hide). I’ve been trying to cycle the aquarium since. I’ll admit I didn’t really keep up with it at the beginning as I was super busy with the end of the school year. But since about the end of May/start of June, I’ve been adding in ammonia and checking the water frequently. It seems to be going okay, doing what it’s supposed to do, other than taking a long time, but I’ve only been somewhat consistent with checking the water (still have been adding ammonia in frequently though, especially when the ammonia in the tank gets low). My current issue is the nitrates. They seem super high, and even after doing 30% and 50% water changes the nitrates haven’t changed much. I can’t particularly tell what the exact readings are (am I supposed to hold the tube flush against the white cardboard, hold it slightly above the white cardboard, or hold it up to the light??) but my best guess is that just a minute ago, 12 hours after adding in ammonia, my nitrites are 0, my ammonia is 1 (held slightly above the white cardboard) or 4 (held flush against the white cardboard), and my nitrites are 20-40 (held up to the light) 40-80 (held slightly above the cardboard) or 80-160 (held flush against the cardboard). I can continue doing water changes but they don’t seem to help. My pH get significantly lowered every time I do a water change as well (I have crushed coral in a bag, but it doesn’t help if I do too many water changes). I also have an infestation of bladder snails from a live plant I bought at a store, but I’ve just now put a piece of thoroughly rinsed lettuce in the tank to try to get them to eat it so I can get rid of most of them in one fell swoop. Thanks for any advice and sorry for the sheer amount of parentheses!
