Question: High ammonia

Inhale... Now exhale...

Okay well my first question is, do you have access to an established tank? If so, taking some substrate or filter media from there and placing it in your tank will help cycle it quicker because you're adding beneficial bacteria. I'd also take the live plants out because it will slow the cycle down (I think they're only useful for sucking up Nitrates anyway).

For the sake of a quicker cycle, I'd say to remove him from the tank. When you do daily water changes in his tub, add that water to the tank. You can also add a piece of frozen bloodworm or another source of food that will decay and keep the Ammonia source up. With him out of the tank, you don't have to worry about water changes in the tank (I'm not familiar with fishless cycles so if I'm incorrect, someone please correct me).

If you want to keep him in the tank, just know that I kept my axolotl in the tank for 5 months while it cycled and he never showed signs of stress, skin problems etc. Mind you, at the beginning of the cycle, my ammonia reached 4 and 8 (very stupid of me to not own a test kit earlier) and he's still healthy.

I hope that helps :rolleyes:
 
I have left over frozen brine shrimp i can put in, how long will the cycle take? and no, my new 3ft is the only thing i have, i had never heard of cycling until about a week ago :(
 
Olivia97 said:
I have left over frozen brine shrimp i can put in, how long will the cycle take?
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Yep that should work. I'm not sure, you're asking someone who failed miserably at cycling haha. Depending on how close you are to seeing nitrItes, it could be anywhere from a few weeks to just over a month
 
Leaving him in there, he'd most likely poop, and eat, and swim, and exchange gasses for your plants to use, and as long as it remains below 1.0 ppm, he should be okay. There's a chance he'd get ammonia burns if you got a major spike (Up to 3 or 4 ppm) however, each time I've cycled with the axies in that hasn't happened.
As to time, Jess has got it right- on AVERAGE, a month. It can take longer, or it can happen in a matter of days if there's a beneficial bacteria source present.
Also, Mr B. should be okay out of the fridge if he isn't in the tank :)

Also, to keep your mum on side, axie water is EXCELLENT for plants :D
 
Hahaha yep that's my basis at the moment, took me a month to convince her just to allow me to buy the tank and now I am doing freaky water changes :p So, since he's happy i have decided to leave him in there but if i see any behavior changes he'll be out of the tank. In the mean time, what do i do. Ammonia is still sitting at 1.0 ....
 
Keep up with the 20% water changes, keep testing the parameters, and just monitor his behaviour :) It will take time to do, but it's worth it in the long run!
 
Okay cool, shall do. I'll do a test now :) Thanks for your help, I'll keep this updated
 
This is a GOOD thing!! Those bacteria are happily nomming on Mr. B's poop and breeding like crazy! Keep up with the water changes, and keep watching the levels- next, we want to see a slight rise in nitrates, and the other two start to fall a bit :D
 
Been awhile, so ammonia has crept back up(1.00 ppm) even though Im doing water changes frequently. Nitrite is at .50ppm and Nitrate still 0! :(
 
Frequent water changes make the cycle take a lot longer that's why most people advise to cycle the tank before.
 
I'm doing changes to stop the ammonia levels sky rocketing, unfortunately this is the first tim eive ever heard of cycling so i have no where to put my axie
 
As long as your axolotls doesn't have any sign of stress or ammonia burn I wouldn't be to worried. Just keep going and eventually it will get completely cycled.
 
Do not use ammo-lock it will prevent your tank from cycling. I used bacteria in my tank called dr. Tim's one and only it only took about 7 days for it to cycle with it.
 
Forgive me if you've already mentioned this but what type of filter are you currently using? I found that when I was cycling, it took WAY longer than it should have because I wasn't using a suitable filter for my tank size. The ammonia wouldn't budge from 1-2 even after getting nitrate readings so I put it down to the filter because it was getting clogged too quickly. From my understanding, too much of the excess waste meant that there wasn't enough bioload to convert it into nitrite.
 
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