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My very first Axolotl- Advice appreciated

Rxoc

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Hello!

So about 5 days ago I got my very first Axolotl. She/he is a tiny 2-3 inch leucistic that I call Little One ( I don’t want to name until I know the sex). Well little one (LO) I got at my LFS and LO had no gills/frills. LO was in a tank with some other animals/fish so I’m assuming they got bitten off. Right now LO is in a 10 gallon grow out tank with some sand, a Sponge filter, and a cup as a temporary hide. The tank was not cycled at all!

My issue is I’ve been doing daily 50-75% water changes, removing poop immediately and feeding LO blood worms one by one to ensure it doesn’t pollute the water. However, the water’s ammonia stay at around 1ppm (I don’t actually know because I lost the guide). I have been doing a fish in cycle with another 10 gallon I have that has 3 tiger barbs inside and that tank seems to be cycling fine... my water naturally carries .25 ppm of ammonia and both tanks started at that, both tanks rose to 1 ppm but only my fish tank has gone back down to .25 ppm (AND I was not doing any water changes to that tanks because I had put media from an established tank in there so it’s doing it’s job) however I do not have any media for a sponge filter so I’m at a loss on what to do.
 

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Hayleyy

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Tank looks great, the axie is so so small! Make sure she/he can swim up and down okay. If they're having issues you can lower the water.
What are you using as dechlorinator? My water supply has ammonia too and I've found seachem prime works well to detoxify it until the bacteria eats it up. If you have the API test kit, the ammonia chart runs yellow to green. If it has any green in the results then there is some ammonia. Hope that helps, but you can probably google the test chart.
Are you able to tub the axolotl for a couple of weeks so the tank can properly cycle? You would have to change 100% of the tub water daily. This way you don't have to do any water changes on the main tank and it should cycle faster.
I thought both my axies were male when I got them, so named them Steve and Bucky, but alas they are female. The names have stuck though, I don't think they mind :rofl:
 

Rxoc

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How do you know if they are male or female?

Also, yes super tiny little munchkin!!! I have since removed the sand from the tank to help lower ammonia and will be buying prime.

LO has not eaten any of the sand but it was kind of gravel like and not fine enough...so i am going to wait until I buy very very fine sand before I put a substrate down again....since LO is so small.

The tubbing I found really stresses my axie out and thus turns the situation stressful for both of us. I have recently posted in another post about a solution I am considering if I can figure a few quirks out. Which would be to put her in my more farther along cycled barb tank, with a divider.
 
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