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Axolotl -- ammonia spiked a little, help?

SobaMochi

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Hi there, everyone. This is my first post so hopefully that's OK.

I need some help. My aquarium's levels seemed to have spike slightly overnight and I'm unsure what to do as a new axolotl owner. It's already a cycled tank and levels were acceptable/normal yesterday. I don't use any feeder fish or anything alive. They're still small, so they've been feasting only on bloodworms and hikachi carnivore pellets & doing my best to clean up leftover food and excrete that I see in the tank. I use a Fluval 206 if that helps and I'm using an API test kit. I feed in a mason jar and have three 3-3.5 inch babies.

pH: 7.4ppm
Ammonia: 0.50ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5.0ppm

The aquarium is 38 gallons... Should I do a 25% water change or 50% water change? Is there anything I should be adding extra to the tank at this point? The axolotls are already tubbed in fresh water and eating some bloodworms as we speak. Any advice, tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, everyone in advance. :( Also I apologize if I'm freaking out over nothing, I'm new to aquatic animals in general but I tried doing my research before getting these guys so hopefully, I keep learning as I go.
 

aalysaz

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Hello! It seems that only your ammonia levels have any issue; your others are fine. Did you recently change the filter media? Beneficial bacteria that eat ammonia will live in the filter and if you abruptly take out the filter, the tank may have to re-cycle.

If you didn’t it could just be your tank environment acting up for no reason and therefore you shouldn’t worry too much.
 

Biev

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Things don't happen for no reason... But a 50% water change will bring the ammonia level to ~0.25 ppm, and you can add conditioner to neutralize what's left. Keep testing once a day and using water changes and conditioner as needed. As long as you are providing the bacteria with bio media to colonize inside your filter, your cycle will eventually catch up with whatever has been throwing it off.
 
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