Water Quality

[sarah]

Hello!

I was wondering if someone could help me with my water problems.

i follow the water cycling that you have stated on other discussions but my AMMONIA levels are at a constant 3ppm. This is quite concerning.

I have since bought a Nitrite Tester and it is showing 0.

I have tried cycling water every week, every two weeks and every three weeks, with no improvement on the Ammonia levels.

I also use Stress Coat as directed.

Any suggestions.

Sarah

(Message edited by sarahsbabies on October 19, 2005)

 

[sharn]

could your ammonia tester be passed its used by date?

 

[jordan]

i am also having cycling problems because my ammonia doesn't seem to want to go down either.

 

[rheann]

Hey, Sarah, are you using test strips?

I learned from this forum those are worthless as far as telling water quality goes.

Liquid test kits work a lot better.

if you are unsure, you can take your water into a pet shop and also see what their test results are as well and compare it with yours.

Hope this helps

 

[cynthia]

If you are doing fishless cycling (there are no animals in the tank of any kind)you could try:

Adding more fish food or frozen brine shrimp, what ever it is you are adding as an ammonia source.

If you have an axolotl that is not in the tank that is being cycled, add the axolotls poo to the cycling tank.

Add a heater to the tank and setting it in the 80 degree range.

If you are changing any amount of water from the tank, don't.

Read your dechlorinator bottle, if it says it locks ammonia or makes ammonia "safe", you need to start over and use a dechlorinator that does not alter ammonia.

 

[jordan]

yea my dechlorinator doesn't say that, and i don't want to buy a heater as it would not be used so its almost a waste of money, and i don't have an axolotl yet so i can't transfer poo, and last but not least i am doing a cycle that includes fish. I did change the water once but that was a while ago so it should have dropped by now. There has to be some sort of problem with either my tank, my filter or whatever else.

 

[sarah]

G'day

Ok! Thanks heaps!

Firstly, my Ammonia tester is brand new. (And NOT Test Strips )

Fishless cycling? I take the axolotls out when i clean the tank and give them a salt bath. I normally take out 1/3 water and replace, but i will stop this.

I also take the poo out every two-three days via suction pipe.

I live in a very hot climate and i use an aquarium chiller to keep the boys around 18 degrees celcius or else they will be boiling at around 27 degrees celcius without it. Heating the water up and then cooling it down again would take forever? Is this safe for them then?

The food i feed them is Ox Heart or Meal Worms, but i hand feed them and never leave any in the tank uneaten.
Also, i do not make the ammonia safe, Ive been reading that it is no good.

Cheers
Sarah

 

[ron]

a bit off topic but.. Sarah where did you get your chiller and how much was it?

 

[cynthia]

Sarah - the salt baths are not necessary unless your axolotls are having skin problems.

If you are going to cycle the tank with the axolotls in it you have to remove some water or the water will damage the axolotls.

If you are doing fishless cycling you remove the axolotls from the tank until the tank has cycled which "usually" 30 + days. In this case you do not remove any water.

 

[sarah]

Hi

Cynthia, when i first got the axolotls they were kept in very warm waters at the shop and had white fungus on their tail wounds and back of heads where the fish had bit them as well. the white fungus has gone, but the tails are regenerating well. i shall stop the salt baths now, thank you for your advice there.

I do the cylcing with the axos in the tank, and i remove some water (less than 1/3) when doing so. I have checked my ammonia today and it is down the 1.5ppm and the nitrite is still nil and ph is normal.

Thank you for your help Cynthia.

For Ron - We actually made the chiller out of a water chiller (like what you see in waiting rooms and offices) a small filter pumps the water into the water chiller through a copper pipe and comes back into the tank cold. It works a treat and keeps the water at a constant temp, although it is quite large and the fan can be noisy on it. There was no way i was paying that price for a proper one.

Cheers all.

Sarah

 

[jordan]

nice set-up sarah.

 

[sarah]

thank you jordan

 

[rheann]

Hi Sarah

Could you take some pictures of the water cooler thing you have hooked up? I can get my paws on a water cooler and I would like to make what you have there for my Axolotls.

It gets so hot here in the summer, and it is hard sometimes to keep the temp down.

Any inside or outside pictures of your cooling set-up would help me loads.

Thanks

 

[rheann]

Oh, and by the way, your white kitty looks very pampered

 

[sarah]

Hi Rheann,

Ok, the setup. Well I must admit it helped that my partner is an Electrician! He got an old water cooler from a work site and brought it home. On picture one you can see we have 'chopped' up the cooler and put the parts into a smaller steel box so it fit under the tank table.
I used a filter as the pump (the filtering of the water at the same time is a bonus) and with plastic tube led the water into copper tubing. The tub that the copper tubing is in is the water cooler itself. We used Radiator Coolant in the chiller tub. Once the water had travelled through the copper tubing it connected to more plastic tube that drips the water back into the tank)
There is a fan on the end of the 'set-up' to keep the 'water chiller' from heating up!
Sorry thats not very technical, but I hope it sort of helps and the pictures tell more.

Your kitty is gorgeous. Lily loves her compliment! Here is my other baby Mojo!

Cheers

Sarah

 

[jordan]

wow thats cool that you were able to make a chiller, i wish i had the supplies and the skills to make one. Your cats looks pretty cool even though im not really a cat person.

 

[andrew]

Just be carefull, the copper from the copper pipe can leach into your water and poison your fish.

I have been doing some research into safe metals for aquariums as i'm planing to build a peltier powered aquarium cooler

The only metal that seems to be completly safe is stainless steel.

Although if you are using activated carbon in your filtration system and you do regular water changes, the concentration of heavy metals in you water should remain minimal.