Cycling a tank for Axolotl

[proberge]

Hey Everyone,
I am looking for some pointers on my final stages of my cycle for my Axolotl tank. I finally got my reading down to 0 ammonia, and 0 nitrite with around 20ppm of nitrate.

The current setup is a 29 gallon tank with a fluval 307 and a duel sponge filter. It currently has 3 Cory cat fish, one African cichlid, and one long fin tetra I was using these fish to cycle the tank.

But now since my tank is getting close to done and I am getting It ready for the axolotl. How should I go about lowering the tank temperature from 82 down to 65-66 degrees? Should I go a couple of degrees daily until the desired temperature?

Also I know that a axolotl tank is fully cycled when it can handle 4ppm of ammonia and nitrite within 24 hours. Since I did a fish in cycle with a low bioload will this mess up my cycle when I put the axolotl in the cycled tank or will I just have to watch parameters and do water changes until my bacteria can catch up? Or should I consider getting ammonia to add up to 4ppm when I remove the fish to rehome them to my 55 gallon and wait till it stabilizes again?

 

[wolfen]

even though your axolotl is still quite young the waste/ammonia will still be higher than what the tank is used to (carnivore diets tend to be high in nitrates), because of this it would be better to increase the ammonia level used to cycle to prevent sudden spikes once your axolotl is introduced.
once cycling remove heater and just allow temperature to drop, unless the temperature drops to lower than 10°c it wont effect the bacteria much.

 

[proberge]

even though your axolotl is still quite young the waste/ammonia will still be higher than what the tank is used to (carnivore diets tend to be high in nitrates), because of this it would be better to increase the ammonia level used to cycle to prevent sudden spikes once your axolotl is introduced.
once cycling remove heater and just allow temperature to drop, unless the temperature drops to lower than 10°c it wont effect the bacteria much.

Okay thank you for the advice. How could I go about on increasing ammonia levels I don’t currently have any pure ammonia.

Could I for now add a couple more fish in from my 55 gallon to increase the bioload of the tank until I can get some pure ammonia? I could add 2 pictus catfish, or a pleco, or a couple more long fin tetra just until I can get ammonia.

 

[wolfen]

you could use the waste that your axolotl is already producing to increase ammonia levels, when you are changing the water for your axolotl put the waste water in the main tank (remove water from large tank and replace it with waste water from smaller tank)
adding small fish although it will increase the bio-load it would need to be an oscar for the waste to be similar to an axolotl.

 

[proberge]

you could use the waste that your axolotl is already producing to increase ammonia levels, when you are changing the water for your axolotl put the waste water in the main tank (remove water from large tank and replace it with waste water from smaller tank)
adding small fish although it will increase the bio-load it would need to be an oscar for the waste to be similar to an axolotl.

Okay got it that sounds like a good plan just a couple questions my axolotl is living in a 10 gallon probably 2/3 full so maybe 7 or so gallons when I do this how much of the old tank water should I put in the big tank? And also how long should I do this for and how will I know when the appropriate amount of ammonia is in the water? Also when I do add the water do I have to make sure the temperature is the same with the big tank since my axolotl water is around 65 degrees and the 29 gallon is around 81-82 degrees.

I will still consider adding maybe those pictus catfish and the pleco since the high bioload. I also would have an option to put in a 3-4 inch bumblebee African Cichlid if that bioload would be more than the other fish just a thought.

 

[wolfen]

if the ten gallon is a cycled tank (filter etc.. ) water transferal wont work (I thought it was a case of changing water daily) as the ammonia is already being dealt with otherwise it would just be a case of transferring the waste water over.
if the fish are eating around the same amount of food as your axolotl the ammonia should be around equal at the moment but it will need to be increased once you can get hold of some ammonium chloride to ensure that the filtration can cope with an adult.

 

[proberge]

if the ten gallon is a cycled tank (filter etc.. ) water transferal wont work (I thought it was a case of changing water daily) as the ammonia is already being dealt with otherwise it would just be a case of transferring the waste water over.
if the fish are eating around the same amount of food as your axolotl the ammonia should be around equal at the moment but it will need to be increased once you can get hold of some ammonium chloride to ensure that the filtration can cope with an adult.

if the ten gallon is a cycled tank (filter etc.. ) water transferal wont work (I thought it was a case of changing water daily) as the ammonia is already being dealt with otherwise it would just be a case of transferring the waste water over.
if the fish are eating around the same amount of food as your axolotl the ammonia should be around equal at the moment but it will need to be increased once you can get hold of some ammonium chloride to ensure that the filtration can cope with an adult.

im sorry for the misunderstanding the 10 gallon is not cycled and have been doing full water changes everyday with prime, it was laying around and I didn’t have a big enough tub to fit a 6 inch axolotl in for the time being. All that is in the 10 gallon is one small hide and a small sponge filter but it is cleaned out each water change so no bacteria should be on it.

 

[wolfen]

test the waste water to make sure it contains ammonia (because there is a sponge filter in the tank some of the ammonia would have been removed), remove water from big tank (same amount of water as the small tank holds) add waste water from the small tank to the big tank.