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Did My Cycle Crash Or What??

vlcuXX

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Hey everyone so I've been doing a axolotl-in cycle with two tanks for quite a while now, more than a month!

After keeping up with water changes and testing the water daily I've had quite an experience in terms of cycling my first two aquariums, a 30 gallon housing 4 juvenile 4 inch lotls, which will be together with my other two in a 75 gallon once they reach a close enough size that I won't have to worry about them getting eaten, and a 40 gallon housing 2, 7 inch lotls.

Question I have is about the 40 gallon, I've had the ammonia spike, and the nitrite spike both spiked to about 4 ppm and I had to do rigorous water changes DAILY of around 50-75% to get it down and settled, so one day after a usual water change, I let things settle until the next day to test the water, and I was happily surprised with 0 nitrite from 5 or so every day I tested and with 0.25 ammonia! So from then on I kept testing and testing and testing and still I get 0.25 ammonia 0 nitrite and under 40 nitrate, which was confusing me, why was the ammonia not zero, if the tank was finished cycling, or that's how it looked to me... So I persevered with the testing until yesterday when I tested and there was 1ppm, and now today I tested there was 2ppm, what the hell has happened to my thought to be done cycle? I haven't changed anything that could crash the cycle I still have the Fluval biomax cylinders in my filter as media and some cut up aquarium sponge, in both my filters for the 40 gallon, which are the Marineland Penguin 150B, and 200B.

Any ideas why this is happening? Did the cycle crash? Ill keep up with the water changes then..., really unhappy about this. Oddly enough, the 30 gallon has just started the ammonia spike it stayed at 0.50 or lower until now, where its at 2, I'll do a 50-75% water change on both tanks when I get back from work tonight, until then I dosed with Prime to keep the tank non toxic or not nearly as toxic for them. I already did a 50% water change before I left for work, and dosed with Prime.


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GlowingFauxPas

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I am not a chemist (IANAC) but perhaps there's a piece of old food rotting somewhere that is producing ammonia?
 

vlcuXX

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I hand feed ALL of them and make sure that there's no leftover food and if there is a few bloodworms that slip by I have mystery snails and a couple shrimp in each tank, well no shrimp with the 4 little ones, just 3 snails, but that's not the tank I'm asking about.

Thanks for replying anyway at least SOMEONE took the time to answer. Meanwhile people are looking at axolotl pics over at the gallery section! ??


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rachel1

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Usually if you are getting ammonia readings in a cycled tank, it means your filter can't handle the amount of waste being produced by the animals, or something happened to kill off your bacteria. If you haven't done anything traumatic like exposing filter media to chlorinated water, your filter can't handle the bio load. Options: Get a bigger filter and stuff in more biological filter media. Alternatively, you could move the axies to a bigger tank, or keep a smaller number in the tank you have, or do more frequent large water changes. Build up of gunk in your filter media will also reduce efficiency. I always rinse my media every week in the dirty tank water I pull out when I do my water changes. Usually sponges can trap quite a bit of debris, where my ceramic media will have hardly any. That's where I would start- hopefully that's helpful.
 

Jonjey

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Are mystery snails okay to have with axolotls? Would they try to eat them and choke? I may get some if it's safe, tired of constantly having to suck up detritus.
 

Kaysie

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Snails don't eat detritus. They just create more poop. All snails do is clean algae off the glass (marginally), and eat rotting (or live!) plant material.
 

Jonjey

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Snails don't eat detritus. They just create more poop. All snails do is clean algae off the glass (marginally), and eat rotting (or live!) plant material.

Really? Huh, I heard they do. Oh well lol. I think I may just take out some of the stuff I have in my tank, too many dead spots in between hides and rocks for detritus to build up.
 

vlcuXX

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Usually if you are getting ammonia readings in a cycled tank, it means your filter can't handle the amount of waste being produced by the animals, or something happened to kill off your bacteria. If you haven't done anything traumatic like exposing filter media to chlorinated water, your filter can't handle the bio load. Options: Get a bigger filter and stuff in more biological filter media. Alternatively, you could move the axies to a bigger tank, or keep a smaller number in the tank you have, or do more frequent large water changes. Build up of gunk in your filter media will also reduce efficiency. I always rinse my media every week in the dirty tank water I pull out when I do my water changes. Usually sponges can trap quite a bit of debris, where my ceramic media will have hardly any. That's where I would start- hopefully that's helpful.

The filters I have in that tank are both rated for higher gallons than the tank actually is, and it should be able to hand the bioload of 2 Axolotls, 2 shrimp, and 3 snails, so that's out of the question I would think.

And yeah snails are fine as long as they can't fit in the Axolotl's mouth.

After doing a good big water change in both tanks ill rinse the media in my big tank with some dirty tank water, maybe that's the cause.


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vlcuXX

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some current pics of them compared to when I got them, they look healthy?


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vlcuXX

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Snails are annoying btw they poop more than they eat and they always keep my sand impossible to keep white!


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