NO2 and NO3 Becomes higher.

So i have tested the aquarium water today with some test strips.
And NO3 becomes 25/50 and NO2 becomes 2/5.
I guess it is bad, how do i lower it?

How long has the tank been set up? How many animals and what size animals do you have in this tank? How large is the tank?

In any event, a partial water change would be a good first step unless your water source is itself actually providing the nitrite and nitrate. These two molecules follow the breakdown of ammonia. Do you have a high ammonia reading also?

High ammonia levels come from two substances - decaying organic matter (uneaten food) and animal waste. Check to make sure that you don't have a hidden source of decaying organic matter (hidden under a rock or something). Remove all uneaten food once the animals seem sated.

Check to make sure your filter is functioning properly. It may need cleaning.

The tank is 80x45x30 1 Axolotl in it. and hes a juv.
The problem is i can't test ammonia. the filter is a bioflow super from juwel.
And the tank is only set up for 3 weeks :S
Edit: I changed one (Dunno whats it called in english) white thing
And i'm planning to do a 40/30% water change tomorrow and buying a full test kit,

From the timing alone I'm going to guess that at 3 weeks in you are in your last stages of cycling. I wouldn't expect the ammonia to be at dangerous levels but I can't be sure without a test.
You have the ammonia eating bacteria but the levels of Nitrite make me believe that you don't yet have your full requirement of the nitrite eating ones. You do have some however which is indicated by the levels of Nitrate.

The only way to lower them is to change some water at this stage so do your water change, I'd probably go 20-30% rather than 30/40 though then test again to make sure the levels have lowered enough and change another 10% if they are still too high and do yourself a favor and get the liquid tests rather than the test strips. They are usually cheaper per test (especially if you get the master kits that have all the tests in them) and they are more accurate :happy:


If it helps this is what all your numbers mean both are on the high side in your tank and if by 2/5 you mean 2 - 5 mg/L then you need to get that down NOW those levels are deadly.

MereB said:

From the timing alone I'm going to guess that at 3 weeks in you are in your last stages of cycling. I wouldn't expect the ammonia to be at dangerous levels but I can't be sure without a test.
You have the ammonia eating bacteria but the levels of Nitrite make me believe that you don't yet have your full requirement of the nitrite eating ones. You do have some however which is indicated by the levels of Nitrate.

The only way to lower them is to change some water at this stage so do your water change, I'd probably go 20-30% rather than 30/40 though then test again to make sure the levels have lowered enough and change another 10% if they are still too high and do yourself a favor and get the liquid tests rather than the test strips. They are usually cheaper per test (especially if you get the master kits that have all the tests in them) and they are more accurate :happy:


If it helps this is what all your numbers mean both are on the high side in your tank and if by 2/5 you mean 2 - 5 mg/L then you need to get that down NOW those levels are deadly.

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Lucky me he still isn't sick. my mother is going to buy a full test kit..
Can it be high because of the frozen bloodworms?

Some critters are tougher than other :happy: so yep you're lucky. I'd still be doing a water change today though. There is a limit to how much even a tough animal can take

YAY thank you Mum. Mothers are awesome things

Yes frozen blood worms will mess up your water how much depends on just what you are doing with them.

The cubes are made up of the worms and a small amount of liquid. this liquid will make your water gross and will be a source of ammonia. More ammonia for the ammonia bacteria to munch on means more Nitrite is produced by them and more nitrite in turn leads to more nitrate.
The worms themselves are not going to do much IF you remove all the uneaten ones withing an hour or so of feeding. If you don't remove them, and it's nearly impossible to get them all, they will begin to rot and decay and again become a source of ammonia and a potential fungus risk. It's the uneaten ones that are the problem if they are left in the tank.

I defrost and then rinse the worms with tank water in the sink before feeding them to get rid of the liquid and to feed them to my axies I put the rinsed worms into a glass jar (with a wide opening that my axies can get into and out of easily) full of tank water and gently lower it in and lay it on it's side on the bottom of the tank pushing the bottom end into the sand a little. The axies crawl inside and eat and pretty much all the uneaten worms stay in the jar making them very easy to remove. Took them a couple of times to figure it out but they are real pro's now.

Well i just but the cube into a injection thing and just wait to defrost or i defroze them into a small plastic tube thing. btw. i just tested it with that liqued and it's high. atm water changing.
Removing uneaten food is a pain ( still using injection thing for removing it and a net)
EDIT: I just did a fast test with a test strip and its still saying high nitrate,etc
I'm scared of that Mudkip dies tomorrow should i put him in a plastic box until the nitrate etc is lower?
And removing each day 100% of the water ( Like fridging without the fridge?)
I do a full ammonia,nitrate and nitrite test later today.

Back from testing. and its really really dangerous: NO3 Near 50mg/l NO2 arounnd 2,0 mg/l
NH4/NH3 around 5 mg/l.
PLEASE SAY WHAT I SHOULD DO T_T ( Mudkip is still alive but less active then first)
Edit: The colours for NO3 is darkred, NO2 = Dark red/orange NH4/NH3 Turkoise.
I'm using a sera test kit

while your tank is cycling you should be doing daily water changes of at least 10-20%. Provided your tap water isn't high in ammonia, this will dilute and reduce the dangerous chemicals to a more tolerable level for your axy. I would personally do a 50% water change *right now*. Test again tomorrow before your 20% water change, and so on until the chemical levels stabilise. Your ammonia and nitrite should eventually be at 0ppm and your nitrate should be less than 5ppm. (parts per million) it can take several weeks to completely cycle a tank so be patient and don't panic when the chemical levels rise.

What will happen is you will first see a spike in ammonia, followed by a reduction in ammonia and a spike in nitrites, followed by further reduction in ammonia, reduced nitrites and a spike in nitrates. Eventually it will settle at 0/0/<5. Once it's cycled you should only have to scoop waste once a day, and once every week or 2 weeks, vacuum the tank a little and do a 10% water change to keep it clean and stable. If you test once a week, you will know if you have too much organic waste building up, as your ammonia levels will start to rise again.

You can keep an axy in a cycling tank as long as you keep on top of testing and water changes every day until it all settles down. Make sure you're using a good water conditioner as well to remove any chlorine from the tap water. I've just switched to a conditioner called Prime (not sure if you can get it where you are but it removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia from the tap water and encourages the slime coat growth) and I find it to be excellent.

Good luck! You'll get the hang of it

Change some more water for now and keep changing some until you get those levels down!
There really isn't much more you can do to get the levels down aside from changing more water. While it's not ideal to be changing large volumes of water at a time sometimes you have to.
Try another 50% change and go from there.

You will need to test your tap want as well just in case any of the nasties are coming from the water. You would be amazed what the water people will add to our drinking water to keep it bug free.

If your tap water contains ammonia then as Manifest said you will need to get a water conditioner that will remove it along with the chlorine cloramines and heavy metals. The chlorine will kill your filter bacteria so it needs to be gotten rid of.

Don't do a 100% water change it will set your cycling way back. Change some and refill and repeat as often as needed to get the levels down. Doing that way will ensure that at least some of the older water remains and you won't send your critter into shock from suddenly going from dirty to very clean.

Good luck. Hopefully it will come down quickly with the next water change.

Don't read tests after the time limit as they can't be guaranteed to be accurate. Follow the instructions for doing the tests carefully and read them at the time indicated. My NO2, NO3 and NH's need to sit for 5 mins before reading but the pH one can be read instantly. After a while you will get an eye for the colors and will be able to tell without comparing them to the charts just when you need to change some water.

It could still be a few more weeks before you tank is fully cycled so you will need to keep on top pf the testing and water changes until you see the ammonia and nitrites drop right off.

Thanks for helping. i got back from school and did mudkip into a bucket ( a pretty wide bucket) with some conditioner in it and a heater. I tested the tap water and its NO2 and NO3 less ( Tested fast with a test strip) i also removed some water from the tank already waiting for my mom to help.

a heater? Axy's like cold water, not hot water. Don't use the heater, just make sure his temp doesn't go over 20 degrees Celsius or so. If you raise the temp too high, your little guy will get sick for sure.

Manifest said:

a heater? Axy's like cold water, not hot water. Don't use the heater, just make sure his temp doesn't go over 20 degrees Celsius or so. If you raise the temp too high, your little guy will get sick for sure.

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It's a standard heather from juwel. I just put it between 16 and 20 degrees Celcius

You might actually be better of by accidentally having the water colder than normal. Too warm water will lead to stress and diseases. Adding a heater to a bucket might alsobe a tad on the oversized side of things and possibly heat the water very fast leading to overheating very quickly.

Well, Mudkip is back in the tank after i did a small(?) water change.
And did a fast test again and then i saw it was the same. my mom called a store and they said spray 4 times Dennerle FB7 BiActive each day in the water and if it still bad at friday then i have to come to the store. my mom also brought something called Bactuur gel that you need to put on the blue sponge in the filter for good bacteria.She was orginially looking for a vacuum cleaner for the tank. Is there a way to make the fronzen Bloodworms less NH adding?

You don't need a heater unless the tank is at about 12 degrees so you can get rid of it and save your mom some money on the electricity bill

If you can't buy an aquarium "gravel" vacuum you can make your own :happy:
There are some instructions here Just a couple of notes. Use a longer tube or the garden hose so you can drain it either straight outside or into the closest sink and the longer the hose (to a point) the better it works. 2nd note is keep as much of the bottle as possible. The longer the bottle the more sand remains in your tank while the gunk is removed.

Both those products are the highly suspect "Live filter bacteria in a bottle"
There are a couple of problems with them, mostly though it's the question of how do they keep the bacteria alive in the bottle on the shelf? How do they keep the bacteria alive in the bottle with no food? Any food (ammonia, Nitrite) that was added would quickly be used up leaving you with a bottle of Nitrate and dead bacteria. Let's say they don't use up all their food then you will be adding more ammonia and Nitrite to your tank as well.
If they don't add any food for them then at best you get a bottle of dead bacteria that will act as a nice little ammonia source
I don't care what the manufacturers say they have yet to find a way to keep them alive properly and user tests on here and other fish keeping forums I frequent have all shown there was little or no difference in the time it took to cycle their tanks but they didn't do any harm either. I'd also be checking the ingredients on the labels to make sure they don't contain anything nasty. Heaven only knows what the Gel is made of. Most of these things are made for FISH tanks and fish are a lot tougher than Axies mostly because they have scales to keep this stuff out and off them.

Check the labels against the known unsafe for axie chemicals and heavy metals on the health page of axolotl.org before you add it to the tank. If you think it's safe then it shouldn't do any harm to use the spray but I personally would avoid the Gel until I was sure the gel was safe for my axie.

I have no idea how on earth your levels could still be the same AFTER you change some water. One possibility is that while you were at school the levels rose significantly so changing the water simply brought it back down to where you started yesterday.
I'm glad you water is NO free, how about ammonia free?

OK time to take drastic measures.
Do this in order. It WILL take some time and be a real pain in the backside but you've got to get the levels down pronto.

• Test your water and write down the results. Use the strips if you like for this but make sure you test for ammonia and both nirtites and nitrates. You need to know where you're starting from.
• Change 50% of your water and while you're draining it using a pipe/hose/vacuum look for any rotting plant material or axie poop or uneaten food and remove that with the water.
• Test your water again and compare them to the results you wrote down before they should have dropped considerably, all things being equal they should have halved. If your ammonia is still more than half of what it was then you may very well have ammonia in your tap water. There are conditioners on the market that will remove that for you.
• Now compare them to these numbers Ammonia 0 - 0.5(mg/L), Nitrite 0 - 0.5(mg/L) and Nitrate 0 - 40 (mg/L or ppm) If ANY your newest results are over those ranges then.....
• Change another 30% straight away, don't wait until tomorrow or all the levels will rise again and you'll be back where you started.
• OK 2nd water change complete? Test your water again and compare them to your previous results (should have dropped again and be about 65% lower than your original readings)
• Now compare them to these numbers again Ammonia 0 - 0.5 (mg/L), Nitrite 0 - 0.5 (mg/L) and Nitrate 0 - 40 (mg/L or ppm)
• Still too high do it all again with a 20% water change and keep going with the 20% changes until they are all withing the safe parameters. Preferably NH 0-0.2, NO2 0-0.1 and NO3 0-15

Yes it would be simpler to just change 70% of your water (which is how much of the original water you have actually removed in the 3 changes) at the start BUT as a rule you don't want to be removing any more water and replace it than you absolutely have to you may only need to do the 1st change, or just 2.

You will now need to keep on top of testing your water each day and as any of the levels start to climb again (NH>0.4 NO2>0.2 NO3>30) do 20% water changes. It might need to be done daily, or possibly every other day but you will need to be doing the water changes while your tank is still cycling.

It's easiest to keep track of your cycle if you write down the test results each day and note water changes so you can see which chemicals are present and how fast they are rising.
When it's done you will notice a drop in NH and NO2 and the NO3 will rise.
NO3 is the least toxic of the 3 and is easily removed with weekly/fortnightly water changes once your tank is cycled and stable but we need to get you cycled first

Frozen blood worms are messy things and all you can really do to minimize their impact is to rinse them to get rid of the liquid they come with and remove any that aren't eaten.
Most of us use earth worms as the base of our axies diet and blood worms as a treat. They are easy to digest and have everything your axie needs in one convenient wriggly worm shaped package that doesn't pollute your water until your axie poops them out or on the odd occasion that they vomit them back up
If you put them into clean water for 15 mins or so before you feed them to your axies they will purge themselves of what they have eaten/need to poo out and some of the slime will also come off them.