candycornhappy
New member
I apologize for the long post. I figured that the more info I gave, the more likely someone can help me figure out the problem!
I’m getting so frustrated that I don’t know what to do. I’ve been having fish tanks for a good 20 years now but my axolotl set up is giving me nightmares. I got word from a friend at the beginning of October that the separator broke between a male and female axo and that she needed a new home for the male immediately. We frantically set up a tank and put in a few handfuls of red lava rock from my father’s ancient highly stable aquarium. Waited a few days (as long as we could) and then put in the male axo. He’s 4.5 years old and the tank (was) a bare bottom 20 gal with large rocks, some lava rocks and lots of hides. The temp is kept around 66 F. We did 20-30% water changes every 2-3 days to start. I would vacuum up all of the debris every time I changed the water. We dechlorinated the water we put in and matched the temp. All the parameters were fine and low for about 2 weeks. Then, suddenly the water got cloudy. We assumed this was a good thing like a bacteria bloom. After a week, the water was still cloudy. In fact, it was even more cloudy. We could hardly find our axo. Then, little skinny white worms appeared on the glass. Then, little fat slug planaria appeared on the bottom of the tank. Then the nitrites spiked off the chart. The test couldn’t read it it was so high. For several weeks we did daily water changes. Each day, the nitrites would spike to 2ppm and then the water change would bring it down to .5ppm or less. Also, green slimey debris appeared every day whether I fed the axo or not. We went to the pet store and got chemi-pure for the filter as recommended by the axo owner there. We were told that the slimey debris was literally mold that would progress very fast each day because of the high nitrites. Then, one day about a week and a half after adding chemi-pure, the nitrites were at 0. We were relieved. The green debris stopped appearing too. Then, after 4 days, the ammonia started to spike. Just a little spike, like 0.25 ppm. Then we woke up to another cloudy tank. I’ve been doing water changes every other day since, with the ammonia rising up to about 0.5ppm every few days. And now we get a daily influx of black debris rather than green slimey debris. It gets so bad that he kicks it up when he walks around that it lands on him when he stops moving. A few days ago when I lifted up a decoration to use the syphon under it, it started spewing debris out of the leg of it. So I pulled it, put in a ton of larger than axo head sized rocks and a different piece of décor hoping that the increased surface area would help. But now I can’t vacuum up 100% of the debris because of the rocks. I’m so tired of the whole thing. He eats every time I offer food (every 3 days or so) and acts like a happy axolotl. Oh, also, our tap water is 7.2 on the pH scale. Something in his tank drops it to 6.0 (or less, that’s how low the scale goes) by the next day. Kind of a large difference. We think it might be the dechlorinator or the chemi pure? His previous owner never changed the water once and her tank cycled in one month. But I can’t imagine just letting the ammonia and nitrites burn him without doing anything. How do we fix our tank? It's like the cycle is going backwards or restarting.
I’m getting so frustrated that I don’t know what to do. I’ve been having fish tanks for a good 20 years now but my axolotl set up is giving me nightmares. I got word from a friend at the beginning of October that the separator broke between a male and female axo and that she needed a new home for the male immediately. We frantically set up a tank and put in a few handfuls of red lava rock from my father’s ancient highly stable aquarium. Waited a few days (as long as we could) and then put in the male axo. He’s 4.5 years old and the tank (was) a bare bottom 20 gal with large rocks, some lava rocks and lots of hides. The temp is kept around 66 F. We did 20-30% water changes every 2-3 days to start. I would vacuum up all of the debris every time I changed the water. We dechlorinated the water we put in and matched the temp. All the parameters were fine and low for about 2 weeks. Then, suddenly the water got cloudy. We assumed this was a good thing like a bacteria bloom. After a week, the water was still cloudy. In fact, it was even more cloudy. We could hardly find our axo. Then, little skinny white worms appeared on the glass. Then, little fat slug planaria appeared on the bottom of the tank. Then the nitrites spiked off the chart. The test couldn’t read it it was so high. For several weeks we did daily water changes. Each day, the nitrites would spike to 2ppm and then the water change would bring it down to .5ppm or less. Also, green slimey debris appeared every day whether I fed the axo or not. We went to the pet store and got chemi-pure for the filter as recommended by the axo owner there. We were told that the slimey debris was literally mold that would progress very fast each day because of the high nitrites. Then, one day about a week and a half after adding chemi-pure, the nitrites were at 0. We were relieved. The green debris stopped appearing too. Then, after 4 days, the ammonia started to spike. Just a little spike, like 0.25 ppm. Then we woke up to another cloudy tank. I’ve been doing water changes every other day since, with the ammonia rising up to about 0.5ppm every few days. And now we get a daily influx of black debris rather than green slimey debris. It gets so bad that he kicks it up when he walks around that it lands on him when he stops moving. A few days ago when I lifted up a decoration to use the syphon under it, it started spewing debris out of the leg of it. So I pulled it, put in a ton of larger than axo head sized rocks and a different piece of décor hoping that the increased surface area would help. But now I can’t vacuum up 100% of the debris because of the rocks. I’m so tired of the whole thing. He eats every time I offer food (every 3 days or so) and acts like a happy axolotl. Oh, also, our tap water is 7.2 on the pH scale. Something in his tank drops it to 6.0 (or less, that’s how low the scale goes) by the next day. Kind of a large difference. We think it might be the dechlorinator or the chemi pure? His previous owner never changed the water once and her tank cycled in one month. But I can’t imagine just letting the ammonia and nitrites burn him without doing anything. How do we fix our tank? It's like the cycle is going backwards or restarting.