What to do...what to do..?

I will be recieving four axolotls on wednesday of next week. I checked my water parameters and they check out as follows:

Ammonia: .25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
pH: 7.4
and this is what bothers me...
Nitrate: 60ppm

I know the Nitrate is a little high, and I dont know why. Im going to put some plants in and see if it takes it away. The ammonia is because I changed out the filter cartrige and some of the yuck spilled out into the water and will probably be gone later. Is there anything else I can do for the nitrate? Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Mark

You seem to be in pretty good shape actually. Nitrates 0-60ppm should be ok. But anyway there are no animals in there right now.

Before you get your axolotls, just do a 20-25% water change. That should lower your nitrates and ammonia. If you feel this water change still leaves high nitrates, wait a day and do another 20-25% water change. Dont do a big one all in one go, or you might cause sudden water parameter shifts (in pH, etc) which might kill off some nitrifying bacteria. Once you get your axies, you should still do this partial water change every week or every 2 weeks, depending on how crowded your aquarium is. Keep track of the parameters, you will know if you need to do it weekly.

Live plants should also do you well but unless you plan on *heavily* planting your aquarium the decrease in nitrates is not going to be substantial with 4 axies in there. But I love my live plants, so I say go for it anyway if you can afford them. It makes the aquarium look much nicer too. All the best.

tran said:

unless you plan on *heavily* planting your aquarium...

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This was going to be my next question. Can you overly-plant an aquarium for axies? I love the plant look, and I know someone who can get them for me relatively cheap. Plus, its only a 20gal long for the time being. I know leave enough room for the axies to move, but I would love to have tons of plants around the back and sides leaving the middle and front the only things visible. Thanks in advance again and for your response.

Mark

Well I can think of these pros and cons. Some others might add to the list, but then you can make a decision for yourself.

Advantages:
1) looks great
2) plants compete with algae for nutrients
3) more plants reduce more nitrogenous waste
4) more plants = more oxygen for your axies

Disadvantages:
1) the more plants you have, the more CO2 they require. Unless you plan on a pressurized CO2 system, perhaps 4 axies might not produce enough CO2 to keep your plants in the best shape possible.
2) plants might run out of nutrients if there are so many of them and might start to starve for nutrients. You might even need to start a fertilization process (probably not healthy for your axies, because some ferts have high Iron (30ppm), Phosphorus, and other metals).
3) more plants = more light, might be expensive
4) axies might uproot some of the plants, making them impractical to have in the tank unless you properly root all of them.

Basically what I'm saying is "overplanting" your axies aquarium might cause a unbalanced system where there are not enough animals to produce CO2 and nutrients for all your plants. You might end up with some decaying plants which will be hazardous to your water parameters unless promptly removed.

If I were you I would keep enough plants for the amount of light, nutrients, CO2 you (and your axies) can provide.

I run aquaria crammed with plants as a congested mass. The main ones are elodea and watercress, which grows above the water and needs pruning back periodically. It seems to be very good at mopping up nitrogen. There is hardly any plant free water, only a thin strip at the front where the axolotls usually appear at feeding time! It is very hard to overplant a tank.

Two fluorescent strips are fine and one tank runs on one fairly well, I use a 12 hour light cycle at present, but have used up to 16 hours light. The bottom of the tank is rather dark. I do a 1% daily water change otherwise the water gets browner and browner. You do not need CO2 or fertilisers, the axolotl waste is enough.

My tanks run consistently at ammonia trace, nitrite nil, nitrate nil - yet the plants do not look nitrogen starved. The only cleaning I do is to scrape the glass so I can sometimes see the axolotls. The tanks behave as indoor ponds rather than standard filtered aquaria. The bottom is muddy, I don't clean out any debris apart from obvious rotting uneaten food!

I agree with previous posts your tank chemistry is quite good. I would be happy to let my axies loose in this water, just do regular water changes and keep an eye on the chemistry.

Do try heavy planting if you like the look.

Hi Oceanblue. Thanks for adding to the discussion! Nice to hear that a heavily planted tank with elodea (a.k.a anacharis) does do rather well as you say.

What I can derive from your post is that

oceanblue said:

The bottom is muddy, I don't clean out any debris apart from obvious rotting uneaten food!

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This means you have a fertile substrate (e.g. soils) and not just gravel or sand. Therefore ferts are not as necessary as you said in this situation because the substrate provides the humic substances and mineral content. I was assuming he had an unfertile substrate like sand as most axie tanks do.

oceanblue said:

The only cleaning I do is to scrape the glass so I can sometimes see the axolotls.

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It seems like you have quite a bit of algae growth on the tanks!

My point of saying that CO2 might be needed is this: plants need light AND carbon (in the form of CO2) to build more plant material. So when they have enough light and not enough carbon, they cannot even use some of that light! Therefore algae will take advantage of this excess light and nutrients to flourish. The plants will then have only as much light as the carbon content lets them, which means low light. This seems to be the case in your tank, is that the plants are not nitrogen starved, but might be carbon deprived. But you don’t have high-light plants in your tank so that’s ok.

Elodea/anacharis are very hardy plants and they will survive fine that is why your tank is doing so well. So if you don't have enough CO2 (and you dont want to supplement carbon) it's not the end of the world, the plants will have to be low-or-moderate light plants and you might just have algae, which is not bad for your tank but is rather unsightly.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not discouraging an "over-planted" tank. My lab mate (he sits next to me at work) is a HUGE aquascaping hobbiest and even a judge in the Aquatic Gardener's Association (AGA) 2007 Aquascape contest. He uses hundreds of plants for aquascaping so I think the heavily planted look is beautiful. From him, I inherited tips on how to keep plants and tanks looking pristine (algae free, no decay, and full of color), but perhaps that is not everyone's goal for their axie tank and it’s not possible to have the plants’ AND the axolotls’ best interested in mind. I just wanted to point out to Markw that all but the hardiest plants need more than minimal care and he needs to consider a few things before diving into the (wonderful) world of live plants.

AGA contest I mentioned here http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2007.cgi?&op=showcase&category=0&vol=1&id=6

So if you follow Oceanblue's lead and plant elodea (anacharis), anubias, or other low-mod-light, hardy plants and you will be in really good shape with low CO2 and low light. Again, commercial ferts are not recommended for the sensitive axies so dont waste money on them.

I didn't mean to scare anyone away from live plants, some of them are fool-proof and are worth planting for the aesthetics and nitrogen reduction.