Plants and easiest tank maintenance advice?

Hello everyone I'm new to this community. Also soon to be a first time Axolotl owner. I've read great posts on here about tips on how to properly care for your axie. Not gonna lie a little overwhelmed about the water level maintenance and keeping the ammonia and nitrate levels at the acceptable rates. Can someone help and break it down for me please? Also would like suggestions on simple easy maintenance live plants that won't harm the Axolotl. I would like to add some sort of lily pads. Help!

Don't worry too much about water quality. If the tank is cycled, has a filter, you do weekly water changes, and remove poo/uneaten food, there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
For plants, the only Lilly like plant that comes to mind that can work in an aquarium is water hyacinth. But it can be tricky to grow, it's usually used for outdoor ponds. I'd reccomend java fern, elodea, and creeping Jenny. Those are all easy to grow plants that do well in low light. They are pretty tough too, and in the case of the latter two they can be free floating. Oh, and there aren't any plants I know of that can harm an axolotl, it's more about finding ones that will grow in a cold water low light tank.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any more questions

回复: Plants and easiest tank maintenance advice?

Deeneylani said:

Hello everyone I'm new to this community. Also soon to be a first time Axolotl owner. I've read great posts on here about tips on how to properly care for your axie. Not gonna lie a little overwhelmed about the water level maintenance and keeping the ammonia and nitrate levels at the acceptable rates. Can someone help and break it down for me please? Also would like suggestions on simple easy maintenance live plants that won't harm the Axolotl. I would like to add some sort of lily pads. Help!

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I won't lie to you, cycling is a little tricky to get your head around, but its important that you understand what is happening so you can follow the process along. Please make sure that your tank is cycled before you get your axie - this usually takes 6-8 weeks but is less cruel and significantly reduces the risk of you killing your new pet!

Check out this link which explains how to do fishless cycling and after you understand what to do use this ammonia calculator. You'll need to get your hands on an API test kit too, which will help you test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate so you can cycle your tank correctly. Don't bother with the paper strips as they are very inaccurate.

Essentially with cycling you are growing bacteria to remove ammonia and nitrITE, which from then on will always be 0ppm in your tank. It is not possible to remove nitrATE which is why we do weekly water changes, to keep this level at around 20-40ppm. Like sde mentioned, as long as you do your water changes and clean up poop, there shouldn't be any problems after your tank is cycled.

No idea about lily pads but as your tank will have to be no light-low light (axolotls hate light) you're fairly limited in your options. However, you can still get some hardy low-light no-CO2 plants like amazon swords, crypts, echinodorus, etc. Make sure the plants you choose do not need CO2 supplements.

Good luck!

Re: 回复: Plants and easiest tank maintenance advice?

I'm no expert but I've been reading that Pothos (the plant, not the Musketeer) can help with the Nitrites, lessening the amount of water changes. It can grow in the sump with ambient light. Grows quit well too. I'm thinking of incorporating that in my new tank set up.