Water change tips plz

Hi there

I'm curious as to what the safest method would be for water changes with my future axie. I have recently started over after the passing of dear henry and have cleaned out and refurnished my 4ft tank (approx 120L). I have also purchased a Hailea chiller to start off my new tank to make temp control less of a stress. Now i have my water temp sitting at 18 degrees, although my weekly 20% water changes push the water temp up to low 22. At the moment i only have a goldfish in there for cycling but i'm worried that such a rise with my axie would cause alot of stress on a weekly basis.

Just thinking....maybe more frequent and smaller water changes?? Or should i keep axie temporarily in fridge till temp drops again?? any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

Less frequent water changes!

A properly cycled tank of that size should not need that much of a change every week. While you are cycling it, do not do any water changes. Let it run and only add water to replace that lost through evaporation. Weekly, you should test the tank for ammonia, pH, nitrate and nitrite. At first all those levels should be high and vary quite a bit from week to week. Once the readings stabilize to nominal (pH near 7.0, the rest at extremely low to nothing) the tank is cycled and ready for a new pet.

Frequent water changes in the order of what you describe are actually detrimental to maintaining a proper nitrogen cycle in the tank and will actually cause more problems than they fix.

Once the tank is cycled, I suggest testing your water chemistry weekly and using those test results to determine when to do a water change.

Thanks for the info sludgemonkey!! Less frequent water changes shouldn't be too hard to handle
Good to get that sorted before i eventually introduce new pet .

I have an Api kit and have been doing a few tests here and there and the Ph always seem to be on the high end for axolotls..its always around 8. Is that because of cycling?? or my water type?? just because I had been doing such frequent water changes etc..could this rise again with less frequent water changes??

I'm very new to all this and any tips getting my water up to scratch would be appreciated.

thanks

A pH of 8 really is not too much to worry about. Indeed in the wild the water they used to live in varied quite a bit in pH dependent on the season (mountain stream fed stagnant lakes). As long as the PH is stable at that level I would not worry at all.

The hardest part of cycling in a new tank is the time involved. Actually time it takes to successfully cycle a tank is Dependant on a multitude of variable.

One aspect you may want to watch closely is both carbonate hardness and total hardness. From what I know of Aussie water standards, you folks generally tend to have soft water. This can affect cycling quite a bit as hardness and temperature inversely affect dissolved oxygen. Cold, hard water will hold less O2. Warm, soft water will hold more dissolved oxygen. The amount of oxygen present directly affects the establishment of nitrifying bacteria and so on.

Have you read the Caudata Culture Article on tank cycling and water chemistry? I suspect if you haven't may may find more helpful information there too.