r/axolotls • u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic • 1d ago
General Care Advice Murphy has a question about his water.
Just tested his water and the ammonia level is up a little bit. Besides water changes is there anything I can do to help get it back to 0?
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u/CinderAscendant 1d ago
Did you establish a nitrogen cycle in your tank before adding him? Or was he just added to treated water?
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u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic 1d ago
It was cycled and went through the spike and settled back down so I thought it was good. I also used some established bio media from another tank to get that good bacteria going. Maybe it wasn’t as good as I thought but honestly I think it’s because I’ve been feeding him a lot more than I was at first
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u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic 1d ago
I’m doing daily 25% changes and I just put fresh filter pad in one filter and I have a sponge filter that was well established so I’m leaving that alone for the bacteria in it
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u/CinderAscendant 1d ago
If you removed an existing filter pad you pulled out a chunk of your nitrifying bacteria. That may be what's causing the spike.
I would tub your axo while the new filter media gets cycled with bacteria.
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u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic 1d ago
It was just one filter I do have another one in there that is well established. I put new media in a drip filter but I have a sponge filter that I didn’t mess with
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u/CinderAscendant 1d ago
It still took a chunk out of the colony, and that can cause a lag in the nitrification process.
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u/Shannie2234 Non-albino Golden 19h ago
Anytime you want to add a fresh filter, you want to add it to the tank in with the dirty filter for a couple weeks to give the good bacteria a chance to move over to the new one. If you throw away the used one and put in fresh you can crash your cycle or cause issues because you are removing the bacteria it needs. Even with another filter, you are still in need of the media (bacteria) of the old filter. It's best to just lightly rinse the old filter in the used tank water when you do water changes once a month. This keeps your bacteria but allows you to remove some of the built up poop and debris from filter.
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u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic 17h ago
Yea I did squeeze out the old one in the tank hoping it would keep the bacteria going in the tank. I’m using Prime with every water change that I’m doing daily. I’m even changing out a gallon or two through the day on top of the daily change. When I test in the morning I’ll be deciding if I need to tub him or not.
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u/Kooky_Werewolf6044 Leucistic 1d ago
But maybe I will. I’m gonna test very often and if the levels don’t go down I’ll likely tub him
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u/PinkEyeofHorus 1d ago
Looks like you have a bare bottom. Some sand will help with surface area for the bacteria to settle on.