Nutrition

Read this before purchasing your axolotl!

If you’ve already purchased your axolotl, sit down and read this now - your axolotl’s life depends on it.

Important Note

Do not put your axolotl in an uncycled aquarium, as fish-in cycling shortens the lifespan of almost every animal that is subjected to it.

Hardy species such as scaled fish may survive fish-in cycling at a high rate, and only lose several years off of their total lifespan due to the effects of respiratory and cardiovascular damage.

Sensitive species such as invertebrates and amphibians, however, seldom make it past the nitrite spike of cycling before their abilities to breathe and eliminate waste are decimated.

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Preparing to Cycle

It is highly recommended to test your source water with your API Master Test Kit before beginning the cycling process, to ensure pH is stable and nitrates are low enough to use!

Set up your aquarium and filter per manufacturer instructions; load the filter with as much filter media as possible! Fill the aquarium and dechlorinate the water (2 drops per gallon of Seachem Prime), then turn your filter on. If using a canister filter, it will need to be filled with water before turning on, as air within the canister prevents the siphon from pumping water.

If using a heater, seeded media, or bottled bacteria, set up the heater immediately and seeded media immediately, and add the bottled bacteria after adding ammonia. Make sure there is also a thermometer in the tank.

Dosing Ammonia

Dr. Tim’s occasionally mislabels their products, inaccurately stating 4 drops per gallon = 2 ppm.

However the correct dosage is 2 drops per gallon = 2 ppm.

Add 2 drops per gallon of Dr. Tim’s Ammonium Chloride to the aquarium. Test the aquarium’s ammonia parameter 1 hour later to ensure ammonia was dosed correctly, then get ready - you’ll be testing all of the tank parameters every 24 hours for 4-10 weeks to complete its Nitrogen Cycle. 

You will not need to dose ammonia every day, but still test every day - if ammonia drops to 0 ppm for an extended period of time, progress will be lost as beneficial bacteria will die off.

Ammonia to Nitrites | Beneficial Bacteria - Nitrosomona

Ammonia would typically build up indefinitely, and in chlorinated water, it can. However, beneficial bacteria exist in small numbers as opportunistic organisms in all water columns. This means that as soon as you dechlorinate the water, they begin to populate surface areas in the aquarium.

Unfortunately, most beneficial bacteria are aerobic, meaning they require oxygen to survive and reproduce. Lucky for us, a proper filtration system allows beneficial bacteria to colonize rapidly - the aquarium filter isn’t the true filter of the aquarium, in fact, its media is the home of the beneficial bacteria which performs biological filtration.

Nitrosomona begins to grow microscopically on the filter media, causing ammonia to slowly drop, and nitrite to rise to detectable amounts on the liquid test kit - so begins the process of nitrification. At this time, you’ll dose ammonia whenever it drops to 1 ppm or lower, and you will dose it back to 2 ppm.

Nitrites to Nitrates | Beneficial Bacteria - Nitrobacter

When cycling an aquarium, there are two different colonies of beneficial bacteria we need to be aware of. Nitrobacter are the second colony which grow on surface areas, and they need no additional care to encourage a culture - they just need nitrites! As Nitrosomona produce nitrite as a waste product after oxidizing ammonia, and they always grow first, cycling doesn’t require anything more than carefully measured daily ammonia dosing.

After Nitrobacter begin to colonize, you’ll notice nitrate begin to rise and nitrites drop. At this point, only dose ammonia if it drops to 0 ppm, and dose as much as will be consumed in 24hr, no more. The goal is to keep the Nitrosomona bacteria alive while not overwhelming the small Nitrobacter colonies with massive amounts of nitrite.

Nitrates are considered the end result of the nitrogen cycle, and although they continue onwards in nature as food for plants, algae, or anaerobic bacteria, nitrates are removed via water changes in household aquariums.

When nitrites begin to disappear, cycling is almost complete! Slowly begin dosing back up to 2 ppm daily, by titrating upwards. Any day that results in a nitrite spike, dose less ammonia. Any day in which nitrites clear to 0 ppm, dose extra ammonia, and only consider a water change (explained in the next paragraph) when pH drops to 6.8 or lower.

Nitrite Spikes, pH Drops, and Cycle Stalls

1 ppm Ammonia > 2.7 ppm Nitrite > 3.6 ppm Nitrate

The Nitrogen Cycle is all about chemistry, and chemistry is, unfortunately, all about math. We can use this to our advantage, however, in the cycling process. Above is a formula that applies to cycling in all aquatics.

When nitrite rises above 4 ppm, the cycling process begins to halt, and ammonia dosing should be minimized to what is necessary to maintain around 0.5 ppm in the tank. If nitrites rise ‘off the charts’ (become so dark that they cannot be read), perform a 50% water change.

Although previously not recommended by some aquarists, it is becoming more common in the hobby to treat cycling stalls with moderately sized water changes. If your tap water has a pH of 7.2 or higher, a 50% temperature-matched, dechlorinated water change typically solves pH drops, nitrite spikes, and temporary cycle stalls. 

Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter both prefer tropical conditions, so if the cycle is moving slowly, adding a heater to boost the water temperature to 75F+ may increase the rate of beneficial bacterial growth.

Nitrate Testing

Why aren’t nitrates showing up?

1. Nitrites aren’t processing yet

2. False negative nitrate test

Planted tanks are great, however, a single axolotl seldom produces a bioload of under 1 ppm per day in any common sized aquarium. This creates the need for weekly water changes once the axolotl has been put into the tank - however, the axolotl cannot be added to the aquarium once The Nitrogen Cycle has simply completed.

A completed cycle is defined as 2 ppm of ammonia being filtered by the beneficial bacteria within 24 hours, resulting in 0 ppm of ammonia and nitrite, and the mathematically correct amount of nitrate. However, after dosing ammonia for weeks on end - nitrates will have risen very high. If nitrites have reliably dropped daily, nitrates will show up, and should be above 60 ppm. If minimal amounts of nitrates are showing up on your test kit - do not assume your nitrates are low, just because they test low. The nitrate test kit comes with two bottles of solution, and reagent #2 contains both powder and liquid, so it occasionally must be massaged to break up powder clumps.

If the nitrate test comes back too low

Make sure when testing nitrates that you follow instructions exactly as they are stated! This test very commonly yields false low results when not performed correctly.

  1. Add 5ml tank water to the vial - Fill exactly to the line
  2. Add 10 drops from Nitrate Reagent Bottle #1
  3. Cap the vial to invert and mix
  4. Shake Nitrate Reagent Bottle #2 for 30 seconds vigorously - This reagent contains crystals at the bottom that need to be shaken hard in order to suspend them so they work correctly! (False low readings will result form not shaking this bottle enough.)
  5. Add 10 drops of Nitrate Reagent Bottle #2 to the vial
  6. Cap and shake for 60 seconds
  7. Do not read the results until 5 minutes have passed