Question: Restless Lottles

Hi, l'm new to this forum and am in dire need of some advice, please. l'm in Canberra, Australia and have had 2 lottles for about 8 weeks now. l keep getting conflicting advice about water temp, what should it be? They're in our living area which is pretty much climate controlled, never gets below 15C or over 26C. l took the lottles out of their tank which was 18-20C as they were doing this floating thing with their gills forward, and clearly stressed. l put them into an smaller tank, chilled the water down to 12C with frozen drink bottles, and they destressed within a few hours. They ate yesterday for the first time, but today they are restless, they won't stay still, they're continually moving. l have had then on a diet of lean steak as they won't eat anything else. l Also l've been having enormous problems with Amonia. The lottles have been out of their tank, 2ft, for four days now. l replaced the circulating filter with a canister one, and have put ceramic noodles and wool in it but the amonia isn't coming down. l have treated the water with Ammo Lock to detoxify the tank, but to no avail. Please help

That happened to me. My ammonia was all over the place. Best thing you can do is 50% water changes everyday to each other day. Also you can treat the new water with "seachem prime".. I've been using that for a while now and my ammonia has dissapeared. It's safe to leave the axo's in the water while doing a water change

If you are having problems maintaining the water between 63-68*f you may want to invest in a chiller. Also putting your tank in the coolest room in your place also helps with keeping the temp between those degrees.

You should try feeding you axies a variety of different foods like massivore pellets, silverside, shrimp, bloodworms, and or blackworms.

Do 50% water changes daily to lower ammonia levels. Sounds like your tank is still cycling.
Temps of 18-20 Celsius is fine for them. More likely the ammonia was stressing them out more than the water temps.

Another thing that can be bothering them is if there is too much of a current in the tank. If there is a strong flow then find a way to reduce that such as by blocking the outflow of the filter so its dispersed if you cannot manually turn down the flow on the filter.

What are your water readings? pH, Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite?

Ph is 7 - 7.2

Amonia is 1.0 - 2.0

Don't know about Nitrates or Nitrites as l haven't tested for these.

Is doing 50% water changes while the tanks is cycling interupting the cycle?

Should l add Bio Booster, Natural Biolgical cleanser to each change?

Should l keep treating the tank with Ammo Lock to detoxify the amonia?

The lottles aren't in the tank while l'm sorting out the amonia problem.

l did remove the circulating filter, now l have a canister one and an air stone in the sick tank. In the small tank where they are they have an air stone as l change their water daily.

l've tried feeding them Bloodworms, axalotl frozen food, organic beef liver and heart but they just spit it out.

The lean steak is the only thing they will accept, l've spoilt them....

l ask not to be impertinent but to learn.:happy:

Thanks for your help.

Hi,

It's probably the ammonia and not the temperature that's bothering them. While the tank still has ammonia in you need to be changing 25% - 50% of the water each day to remove the waste and also dilute the ammonia. It shouldn't disrupt the cycle, but if you changed filter it will have started the cycle over again.

You need to get them to eat earthworms. These are the best diet for them, if they can't eat a whole one try chopping it up. Pellets are OK if you can get them to eat them. Also I've seen a lot of Australians feed their axys live blackworms too. Beef is really not the best food for them, it's nothing like their natural diet. Maybe good as an occasional treat.

As for the temperature, around 15 - 20c is ideal. Anything 24c and over is stressful.

Here's some threads related to Ammo Lock, it looks like the best advise is not to use it and allow your tank to cycle naturally :

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...discussion/83709-ammo-lock-safe-axolotls.html

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...ilters-substrate/60757-how-lower-ammonia.html

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...otl-general-discussion/54984-toxic-water.html

Good luck

Thanks for the info and links, they are a great help.

l'll do 50% water changes daily, cut out the chemicals and let the tank cycle naturally.

Also, l'll keep the lottles out until this happens, and build a worm farm tomorrow!

Thanks again.

lottlemama said:

Ph is 7 - 7.2

Amonia is 1.0 - 2.0

Don't know about Nitrates or Nitrites as l haven't tested for these.

Is doing 50% water changes while the tanks is cycling interupting the cycle?

Should l add Bio Booster, Natural Biolgical cleanser to each change?

Should l keep treating the tank with Ammo Lock to detoxify the amonia?

The lottles aren't in the tank while l'm sorting out the amonia problem.

l did remove the circulating filter, now l have a canister one and an air stone in the sick tank. In the small tank where they are they have an air stone as l change their water daily.

l've tried feeding them Bloodworms, axalotl frozen food, organic beef liver and heart but they just spit it out.

The lean steak is the only thing they will accept, l've spoilt them....

l ask not to be impertinent but to learn.:happy:

Thanks for your help.

Click to expand...

Firstly you should be testing for nitrite & nitrate as that is what tells you what stage your cycle is in. You can take your water to a good fish shop & they can test for it.

Adding Ammo lock will slow or crash your cycle as the idea is you want to grow 2 types of good bacteria - they first need to eat the ammonia to create nitrIte which the next type of bacteria that we want to attract eat the Nitrite & turn it into Nitrate which is the least toxic of the 3 & is easy to control with smaller weekly changes. Locking the ammonia means it's not available to 'eat' & that can delay or crash your cycle.

Feeding strips of beef isn't good as there is very little nutritional value to an axolotl - they need a combination of protein & minerals found easily in earthworms. It's like feeding your kids cheeseburgers all the time because they don't like any other food. If they are hungry they will learn to eat worms - try cutting into mouth width pieces to encourage them to eat them.

With temp - up to 23 is ok - if it creeps over that up to 25 then you need to worry. Aiming a fan at the tank surface can make a few degrees difference. Don't chill them down to 12 unless you can keep that temp consistent - which means having many frozen bottles & rotating them before they have defrosted which maintains a more constant temperature avoiding fluctuations which can be more stressful than being slightly warm.

Post some pics of your axies & tank - just in case there's other things that might be an issue.

Good luck - keep us updated please





<3 >o_o< <3

Hi, just to keep you in the loop.

l've been doing 50% water changes, only using mineral salts and water ager, no other chemicals and the amonia is starting to come down, yay!

Still got the lottles in their holding tanks, doing daily water changes untill it's sorted.

Fed them earth worms yesterday, they spat them out!, so l tried again today and one ate one and them a small piece of bloodworms as well, hunger is a great motivater so the other one will eat one soon.

Thanks for all the help, will try put up some pics soon..