Dirty axolotl tank

[STrapp]

Hello!

I have had my axolotl for 6 years now, and everything has been going perfectly fine. I have always tested the ammonia and nitrite levels in the tank since that is what I had on hand. They always read near zero, so I never fussed. I would top the tank off when it got low, scooped out poop when I noticed it, and called it a day. I have Sid in a 55 gallon tank with one large moss ball, a sponge filter, and lots of hidey holes from rocks and fake root decorations. The substrate is 2-3 inches of pretty fine sand. It looks more like realistic beach sand than play sand with some grain variety, but generally very small grain size. I could tell there was a little bit of mess in there, but honestly it always looked pretty good. Sid gets a worm that he eats whole every few days, so there is no left over food, just poop.

I finally got around to purchasing a new water test kit that had the nitrate test and saw that (I'm guessing you all predicted this) the tank has high nitrate levels.

I got out the gravel vac and did half the tank, just mostly hovering the vacuum over the sand. It was probably a 15-20 % water change. A good amount of gross came out. I did the other half of the tank a few days later, again probably a 15-20% water change. Now the top of the sand looks pretty clean, but when I shove the gravel filter into the sand it comes out super brown.

Just wondering if I should bother trying to get into the sand to get that brown stuff out with weekly water changes, targeting a new area every week? Or just ignore what is buried in the sand and focus on keeping the surface clean? I'm not sure if the brown that is buried is my good bacteria and normal in all tanks, or if I need to get in there and get that out too. Or, if after 4 years of being like that, I should just get all the sand out of the tank?

I put a bunch of pothos and monstera adansonii hanging out the top to start working on some longer-term solutions to keep the nitrate levels down between water changes. And yes, lesson learned, I will now do water changes and not assume that since everything looked pretty clean that it was clean.

Thanks for your input!

 

[wolfen]

in the nitrogen cycle you have waste > ammonia > nitrite > nitrate, this convertion is done using aerobic bacteria, now there is another bacteria that eats nitrates but requires a oxygen free environment and that is what you have got in the sand, now unless it is stirred up it doesn't cause an issue and can be beneficial in keeping nitrates in check. just do weekly water changes and top layer clean.

 

[STrapp]

Just the information I was looking for, thank you!

 

[JM29]

in the nitrogen cycle you have waste > ammonia > nitrite > nitrate

To complete this :

There are at least 3 ways in the nitrogen "cycle", working in parallel :
- waste > ammonia > nitrite > nitrate > ... regular water changes since most aquatic plants have a hard time using nitrate. It's the main way in filtered tanks.
- waste > ammonia > consumption by aquatic plants
- waste > ammonia > consumption by bacteria using high carbon matter (dead leaves for example) > aquatic stable organic matter

The last 2 are often overlooked but they can be very useful

 

[wolfen]

To complete this :

There are at least 3 ways in the nitrogen "cycle", working in parallel :
- waste > ammonia > nitrite > nitrate > ... regular water changes since most aquatic plants have a hard time using nitrate. It's the main way in filtered tanks.
- waste > ammonia > consumption by aquatic plants
- waste > ammonia > consumption by bacteria using high carbon matter (dead leaves for example) > aquatic stable organic matter

The last 2 are often overlooked but they can be very useful

yep, I forgot about the fact that plants love a good source of nitrogen, as for using carbon material such as leaves (which are good for tannins) sugar vodka vinegar these all tend to increase the amount of denitrifying bacteria and also create oxygen dead zones (hence the need to clean pond bottoms in spring because of the amount of leaf debris). people do tend to use vodka etc in saltwater aquariums to control nitrates which are removed using a skimmer otherwise a bacteria bloom can be caused which can be problematic and sometimes fatal.