Water hardness and nitates

[Puddlenewts]

Hello,
I am wanting to up my water hardness and was wondering if anyone has used something like CaribSea Aragonite Aquarium Sand to achieve this.
Also when I tested my water this morning my nitrates are super high. What might be causing this?
Ph 7.5
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 160ppm

 

[Jcd5v]

Can’t answer the hardiness question but nitrates are probably high due to the amount of waste axolotls produce. Nitrates are the end product of the nitrogen cycle and are the least harmful; however, they are still harmful in high concentrations.

How often are you doing water changes and what size is your aquarium?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Puddlenewts]

I change about 10-15 gallons every 3 weeks. I have one axolotl in a 40 gallon tank with a canister filter.

 

[Jcd5v]

I change about 10-15 gallons every 3 weeks. I have one axolotl in a 40 gallon tank with a canister filter.

That’s probably why. I would probably do that weekly and for now I would do a 50% water change and then daily 25% water changes until you get the nitrates down to around 20ppm. In fish you don’t really want them going over about 40-50ppm. I’m not sure how sensitive axolotls are with nitrates in comparison (maybe someone else can chime in), but that’s what I would aim for.

 

[Kitan]

*aggressive cursing ensues* my whole response just deleted. *siiiiigh*

Okay, you are looking for your nitrates to be between 20 and 60 ppm. To keep it here, once you have it under control, you will need to do 20% water changes weekly, even with a filter ? Another thing that will help immensly is cold water, low light plants. I'd recommended marimo Moss balls that are bigger than your 'lotl's head and hortwort, though I have also heard duckweed is great. For hornwort make SURE you rinse it before adding! I didn't and mine took a giant dump of needles into my tank ? Live plants feed on nitrates and increase oxygen in the tank!

 

[Kitan]

Now to answer your second question,what you are looking for is Holtfriter's Solution. It adds safe minerals to increase your water hardness while helping keep your axolotl healthy. Apparently anyhow; my water is naturally full of limestone so it's crazy hard and I've never used this myself. A lovely lady on YouTube provides a recipe to make it as well. Here's a link if you would like it:

https://youtu.be/IEptV3djIk8

 

[NaterPotater]

I've used aragonite before, and it seemed to work pretty well for increasing hardness and raising pH, but I have not used it with axolotls. I think it works pretty well, but I don't know if it's safe. I've never used any substrate for my axolotl tanks.