Ammonia at 8.0 in axolotls tank

[Honeybee_raby]

I have a what I thought was a cycled 20 gallon tall tank with 2 juvi axolotls. The tank was a fish in cycle and I watched the whole process

(this may not be your method of cycling but it's what I did. I love everyone here for always being able to help bUT the whole fish less or fish in cycling debate gets old)

Well, I got them about 3 weeks ago, watched for spike in ammonia and nothing, at week 2 I left to go camping and my boyfriend was watching my animals and when I came back there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong, they were active eating etc and they still were today! What I'm getting at is I tested the ammonia on all of my tanks (that's all I got to before I went into shock) and saw that my axolotls tank was at 8.0 ppm!! They were acting fine I immediately cooled down my spare 10g planted to 63 made sure it stayed there then moved them over until I figure this out.

Was it just too much for the newly cycled tank? What do I need to do now? Please help I can't belive that the ammonia was that high and they showed absolutely no signs of distress..

 

[Saekalive]

What are all your levels at other than ammonia?

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[Honeybee_raby]

Ammonia- 8.0
nitrite - 0
nitrate- 10
???

 

[Saekalive]

Do a 50% PWC and then fill back up and test again

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[Saekalive]

Sounds like you do have acycle, just not enough bacteria to handle the 2 axolotles

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[Honeybee_raby]

I'll get to it! Thank yall!

 

[ImACoolguy]

8.0ppm is certainly enough to kill almost anything in the tank unless you have a very low pH (around 6.0 or below)

Have you tested your tap water?

Are you using a liquid test kit?


Caleb

 

[Honeybee_raby]

I'm using an api liquid test kit and have very hight pH 7.8 to 8.2 my tap waters ammonia is around .25
the test kit is still good and my 6 other tanks (including 2.5 gallons) parameters all came up fine. 0 - .25 ppm ammonia.
I tested again and
ammonia - 4.0 after a huge water change this morning
nitrite- shot up to .5
nitrate - 10 to 20

 

[Caliban07]

I'm using an api liquid test kit and have very hight pH 7.8 to 8.2 my tap waters ammonia is around .25
the test kit is still good and my 6 other tanks (including 2.5 gallons) parameters all came up fine. 0 - .25 ppm ammonia.
I tested again and
ammonia - 4.0 after a huge water change this morning
nitrite- shot up to .5
nitrate - 10 to 20

Is that the ph of the axolotl's water or your tap water? In some waters, the cycle can causes ph to fall very rapidly if it did drop some then I guess the lower ph combined with the lower temperature might just have saved your fish.

I always recommend the Seachem ammonia alert when cycling a tank with fish in.


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[54seaweed]

Do a 50% PWC and then fill back up and test again

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you'll need to wait at-least 8 hrs before you'll get a accurate reading after your 50% water change

 

[Honeybee_raby]

I just tested again and the ammonia is at 4 ppm nitrite back at 0 and nitrate is between 5 and 10. I'm doing a wc right now. I know my tap water pH is high I'll save some of this older tank water and test it's pH when I'm done