Question: City water pH & ammonia levels, fridging

Hi everyone,

I am new to the axie community, as I have taken over the care of my friend's axie due to her having to move out of the country. I am familiar with cycling as I also own a fishtank, but I have a few questions about this for my new axie in regards to when it is safe to fridge him.

Recently my city water has had a spike in ammonia and dangerously low levels of pH. I am not sure why this is, but I've had to let the change water sit overnight with conditioner(prime) to let the water balance. I ended up fridging the axolotl and changing the water, hoping that the remaining tank water and lucky bamboo in the tank would help cycle it to healthy levels. It seems to have worked but....

during this time, I've fridged the axolotl because I don't want him to get sick or shocked before the water is balanced. However, I don't want to have to do this every time I change the water. Is it unsafe to fridge the axolotl once a week while I let the water get back to safe levels? Is there anything else I can do to fix this problem?

Thanks!

Get a couple buckets and prepare your water ahead of time.

How large is the axie's tank? It sounds like you are doing 100% water changes, and this is not recommended. As Kaysie says, prep the water ahead of time. Then do just a partial change and the axie will be just fine. The only reason this wouldn't work is if the tank is too small or there is leftover food mucking the water.

Jennewt said:

How large is the axie's tank? It sounds like you are doing 100% water changes, and this is not recommended. As Kaysie says, prep the water ahead of time. Then do just a partial change and the axie will be just fine. The only reason this wouldn't work is if the tank is too small or there is leftover food mucking the water.

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No, I'm not doing 100% water changes, I'm doing 20%. I just didn't want to pour dangerous water into the tank. The tank is 10 gallons, and the pH level is what's worrying me the most. I've read on this forum that using a pH upper is not a good idea. The water seems to not want to go above 6.0 after I let it sit for a few days, and it's at 5.0 when it comes out of the tap. Even my Axie tank is at 6.0 now. I've also read on here that a pH of 6.0 can be problematic for axolotls, so I'm a little worried about this. I'm not sure how to get it back up to 7.


all I really want to know is:
1) What is a safe way to get pH level to go up?
2) How often is too often for fridging an axolotl if he isn't sick?

Thanks again.