Nitrite Levls

Hello All!

So I've only had my albino axie for a few months (since April) so he's still relatively young. I have him in a 10gallon tank, where he is quite happy with his fake plants, and little head sculpture.

I just recently decided to start to test the levels in my tank (if i don't look, it's not bad) I used a quick dip strip (that tests for 5 things) and the colors that it turned, makes it look like i have REALLY high Nitrite lvls. like, 3.0ppm? And Nitrate was 80ppm? Is this awful? my guy is still really active, pink gills, happy eater, good pooper, etc. But do i need to significantly lower the levels, and if so, how?
I did a 25% water change tonight, and plan on checking again tomorrow to see if there has been a serious change. I have a corner Tetra Whisper filter running, that's designed for 10g tanks.

and actually, i got up to look, and his gills are really red. i thought at first this was healthy, but saw a post on here that made me think otherwise...

I do have some feeder fish, but tomorrow, those are being sacrificed to my roommates turtle, so i can get them out of my guys tank. will that make a diff?

Thanks, and please don't hurt me!

Amanda - If you do not know what tank cycling is and how it works please read this article http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml
you can "google" more info on the topic there is a lot out there.

I have found that test kits that use liquid drops to be more accurate than the dip strips. You may want to purchase a new kit or take a water sample to your local pet store and ask them to test it with a liquid kit to confirm your water parameters.

If you clean your tank by doing large water changes and cleaning rocks and filters all in the same day or days close to each other you may be killing off your good bacteria. That could cause the nitrite and nitrate readings you are seeing.

On the other hand, you may not be keeping the tank clean enough or it may be over stocked. This too would cause a rise in nitrite and nitrate.

Small tanks are harder to maintain water quality in and should be monitered/tested frequently (every other day to every 3 days IMHO).

Removing the fish is definitely a good idea.

If your water tests higher tomorrow than today you may want to remove the axolotl to a food safe container with a lid that is small enough for you to change the water in daily. Keep the axolotl cool and its water clean.

This will give you time to get your water quality issues settled.

Thanks!

And yeah, i checked today, and the levels are definitely going down. Nitrite was down to about 2.0ppm, and the Nitrate is around 40ppm. My guy is much more active today too. I think i wasn't changing the water often enough, so i'll make sure to keep on top of that, as well as the testing. Thanks for the article, it really helped!

Amanda check your post on axie gallery

well as long as you get it to normal thats gud for him.