Question: Water Confusion

Hi everyone:happy:,

I’ve had a white and a black axolotl now for 4 years and when it came to changing their water I would always use filtered water or buy bottles of water, due to the chemicals in tap water. Both of them have lovely gills that are bright and vivid, so i aasumed that what i was doing was right.

Yesterday I brought 2 new axies, a gold one and a grey one (they are both less than 5cm). When I brought them the bloke asked me if I knew anything about axolotls. I informed him I had two etc… he than asked me about water changes I told him what I do to change the water every week. He told me I shouldn’t be doing this and should either use water from my tropical fish tank or just water unfiltered from the tap.

I am now confused. I thought you couldn’t use water out of a fish tank, as your meant to change that water too so aren’t you just taking crappy water from one tank and adding it to the other?
And is tap water safe for axolotls unfiltered?

What water is best to use now through weekly changes?

Any help or suggestions would be very welcomed!!

All of a sudden confused axolotl owner,
Laura

i use tap water, but i use a water treatment to remove chlorine from the water. unless he was talking about cycling the tank by adding some old water of filter matter from the goldfish tank i am at a loss... it wouldnt make sense to me to put them in solely dirty water from a fish tank? or he may mean some 'aged water' to start the new tank up?....however i am no means an expert.
i dont know about bottled /filtered water does filtering water remove the chorine from it?
i would assume bottled water should be ok for water changes but again i dont know if that has chlorine in too?
:happy:

racheljritchie said:

i use tap water, but i use a water treatment to remove chlorine from the water. unless he was talking about cycling the tank by adding some old water of filter matter from the goldfish tank i am at a loss... it wouldnt make sense to me to put them in solely dirty water from a fish tank? or he may mean some 'aged water' to start the new tank up?

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Hi Rach,
Thanks for replying

What treatment do you use to remove the chlorine from your water? As i always assumed you couldn't use any.

Its confused me so because the Gentlemen told me i should be using the tropical water as the water that should be re added in to the axie tank during the weekly water change. So no new fresh water should go into the tank! i always thought this was wrong?!?

Again thanks for replying
Laura

laura103 said:

Hi Rach,
Thanks for replying

What treatment do you use to remove the chlorine from your water? As i always assumed you couldn't use any.

Its confused me so because the Gentlemen told me i should be using the tropical water as the water that should be re added in to the axie tank during the weekly water change. So no new fresh water should go into the tank! i always thought this was wrong?!?

Again thanks for replying
Laura

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not sure of the brand but its just tap water treatment that you get from pet shops for use with fish etc

tropical water would be higher temp also for the axie. it wouldnt be the first time someone has had poor advice from a pet shop. my first axy was bought from a shop that had the little things in with gravel , i went in again some time later to see a poor little one with a huge amount of gravel in its stomach :sad:

i would think he was wrong...surely dirty water will be detrimental to the poor thing. Im sure someone else might come along with a more definate answer

Good luck

Only issue I have with bottled water is that you arent testing them prior to using them. I work at a pet store I have had surprisingly bad water chemistry come from bottled water of various different brands and sometimes even different batches of the same company can be different. Usually its the Nitrates that are particularly high and the Nitrites are sometimes not 0ppm. The high Nitrates would only feed a Nitrate problem unless lots of plants are used to eat it up. Bottled water is prepared for human drinking purposes but not for aquarium use and is often times not ideal for larger aquariums though it can be safe for small betta sized set ups.

Bottled water can also be lacking in minerals (or 'soft'). This can cause ions to leach, leading to kidney problems.

layna said:

I personally use API 'stress coat +' and just plain old tap water, left for at least 24 hours. I have a 3 tank and i just do a 20% change once a week with the treated water

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Thank you! :happy: I'll use this from now on!
Thanks again!