AXOLOLTS, THEIR EGGS, AND RUST IN THEIR TANK- PLEASE HELP!

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I had purchased some aquarium items for my axolotl tank from Amazon and made sure the leaves were silk, etc. for their safety. I have 3 axolotls in a 55 gallon tank. I had the decor in there for at least 2-3 weeks and my axolotl happened to lay eggs (for the first time and very unexpectedly) during this time. I retrieved all the eggs and brought most of the decor with them as they were attached to it and I put them in a big container. I checked the water levels on the main tank after this and was shocked to find my cycle had completely crashed. At the time, I assumed it may have been due to the eggs, or the decor being moved, etc. and I did a big water change, which I used API water conditioner and since I was told that it can alter the water readings for 24 hours, I did not test again that day, but as my one axol particularly started to look worse and worse and his gills were quickly deteriorating it appeared, I decided to get all three of them out of there and I tubbed them with a plan of figuring out what was going on with the tank before putting them back inside. This was 2 days ago and in the meantime, I have been noticing that the eggs (some more than others) have this brown substance around their egg sacks and I noticed that the ones that had the most brown on them were all attached to a particular part of the decor and a lot of those are the ones that did not develop and were duds, compared to the rest that were not touching that part of the develop. It finally clicked in my mind that holy sh*t this decor may have metal inside of it. Sure enough, I cut the decor open and there it was - metal-- all through the decor. That is what the brown stuff is/was it was the rust which I know is very toxic to axolotls. I have always used water conditioner, which I hope has helped some with all of this, but when I transported them to their tubs and moved the eggs into new containers, I did not use API and had just decided to start using Prime Seacam instead based off others experiences, so I am all sorts of overwhelmed and have no idea what to do.

The babies are moving around/twitching inside their sacks, just here and there. I can see some have gills and look like they are on the right track, but then again I do not have anything to compare this to as I have never hatched them before.

1) Are my axolotls (the adults) going to die, or is there anything I can do to help them? They are still eating and seem better-ish than before.

2) Are the eggs/babies even going to have a chance anymore?? Should I remove the eggs that have rust around them and/or keep them away from the ones that don't?

3) Should I add API conditioner to the Seacam Prime or will the prime be enough to help with this?

4) What do I do to get my tank back in order so that it is safe? Do I need to do a 100% start over and cycle, continuing them tubbed, or what are my options here?

PLEASE HELP!
 
@wolfen would know more regarding your cycling questions.
I'm not sure the overall effects of rust when it comes to axolotls.

The best source I could find on the effects of heavy metals on axolotls was this from the University of Pittsburgh which claimed in the study that heavy metal and phosphorous compounds did not impact survival rates on any of the amphibians (ambystomitidae were included in the study). However, there were significant asterisks that prevented a conclusion of its overall effects.

Your best bet is to keep them in cool, clean water, and they will likely improve.
 
iron above very low levels isn't good for axolotls which is why some aquatic plant fertilisers aren't recommended to be used in axolotl tanks.
what was the tank levels when it crashed ie.. ph, ammonia, nitrites? what are they now?
there are a few things that can cause a cycle crash, low ph, low oxygen, a bad/blocked filter can give symptoms of a crash due to a build up of nitrogen compounds mainly ammonia.
read Axolotls - Requirements & Water Conditions in Captivity and use 50% holtfreters with 0.1g/l magnesium sulphate, also make sure the water is oxygenated with an air-stone.
unless it is the api conditioner with aloe vera than it is fine, most dechlorinators work the same way as each other to remove chlorine and break down chloromines to ammonia (which is why testing after a water change can give erroneous readings) they do use some oxygen from the water to do this though, prime is used to lock and detox ammonia (prevents the breakdown of ammonium into free ammonia) and shouldn't be used whilst cycling a tank.
 
Autistic Catholic said:
@wolfen would know more regarding your cycling questions.
I'm not sure the overall effects of rust when it comes to axolotls.

The best source I could find on the effects of heavy metals on axolotls was this from the University of Pittsburgh which claimed in the study that heavy metal and phosphorous compounds did not impact survival rates on any of the amphibians (ambystomitidae were included in the study). However, there were significant asterisks that prevented a conclusion of its overall effects.

Your best bet is to keep them in cool, clean water, and they will likely improve.
Click to expand...
wolfen said:
iron above very low levels isn't good for axolotls which is why some aquatic plant fertilisers aren't recommended to be used in axolotl tanks.
what was the tank levels when it crashed ie.. ph, ammonia, nitrites? what are they now?
there are a few things that can cause a cycle crash, low ph, low oxygen, a bad/blocked filter can give symptoms of a crash due to a build up of nitrogen compounds mainly ammonia.
read Axolotls - Requirements & Water Conditions in Captivity and use 50% holtfreters with 0.1g/l magnesium sulphate, also make sure the water is oxygenated with an air-stone.
unless it is the api conditioner with aloe vera than it is fine, most dechlorinators work the same way as each other to remove chlorine and break down chloromines to ammonia (which is why testing after a water change can give erroneous readings) they do use some oxygen from the water to do this though, prime is used to lock and detox ammonia (prevents the breakdown of ammonium into free ammonia) and shouldn't be used whilst cycling a tank.
Click to expand...
Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply and look into this to help me. I truly appreciate it so much! I will check that link out next for sure. @Autistic Catholic

@wolfen - Thank you as well and to answer your questions with the levels (mind you this is completely off of my memory, but I am pretty confident in my accuracy).

Nitrite- around .50/1.0
Amonia- 1.0 maybe even pushing 2.0
Nitrate- was normal 20ppm

I wish I had taken note of it, or a picture, but it freaked me out so bad I just got them out immediately. I will go ahead and take the readings in a few minutes and report back to you on what it is now...

That is good to know about the API vs. Prime, I was not aware of that and also about the filter... I did change their filter about 1-2 months ago, to what I thought was a better sponge filter than I currently was using. However, I honestly have felt that the original one was doing much better of a job and now that I am looking back on the topic, there has been a lot more debri on the bottom of the tank than ever before, especially recently. It was a lot on the bottom, hard to remove, even during the water changes it was almost impossible to retrieve it all beacuse it was small flakey like debri, almost like dirt that comes off of live worms, or even the poop if you don't get it all when you suction, but there was a lot of it.. I use tile on the bottom for the floor, so I could see it was much worse than usual. I wonder now that it is mentioned if it could be related to a possible bad/blocked filter, like mentioned.... I am going to be using the previous filter moving forward since it worked much better and honestly since everything has been going bad, I think it's time for a change, so in addition to that, I also plan on changing the bottom to sand (very fine of course) because I do not really care for the tiles too much. I am just afraid of impaction with sand so I have not gone that route, but a lot of people seem to have success with it..

I always have used sponge filters which seem to put off a good amount of air in the water, but I have not added an additional air stone, so I will do that. I also plan on getting live plants this week, to add into the tank and will not ever be using those fake ones again. The metal was inside the branch part of the plant and I had a lot of that in the tank. They were the bendable branches with the silk leaves and I realized now what made it bendable was the metal inside. :(

I will check out the link you shared and I have heard of the 50% holfreters in the past, but want to ask if you think it would be similar or just as beneficial if I were to use pink Himalayan salt and colloidal silver?? (Forgive me if this is nothing like the other, I am clueless)... but I ask because one of the places I got one of my axolotls from recommends putting the salt/silver in the water to keep the fungus away from the babies while hatching them, etc. so I just purchased those and have them handy, if that may be of the same treatment.

Thanks again for taking your time to help me with this. I really appreciate it more than you know.
 
The conclusions of the article, as pointed out, are notably inconclusive at best on heavy metals in the environments. A lot of it is based on opportunities to recover and how much exposure as wolfen has already stated. If the rust cannot be separated from the eggs, what you might try doing is quarantining the rust-covered eggs from the non-rust-covered eggs and seeing whether that impacts development or not as what's done is already done. I assume this is being done already though.
 
on the one hand using silver is said to help with injury's with fish and on the other silver has been noted as being highly toxic in an aquatic situation, I have never used it myself although because I know silver is harmful to bacteria I would refrain from using it so as not to harm the bio-filtration.
himalayan salt is fine to be used, 1g/l with eggs, 2g/l with adults.
 
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