Cycled Media

One of the trickiest parts of keeping an axolotl, or any aquatic pet is the nitrogen cycle! Your aquatic pets produce ammonia in the aquarium, this ammonia is eaten by helpful bacteria and turned into nitrites (dangerous to animals) and more helpful bacteria turns nitrites into nitrates (not harmful to fish or amphibians). This process can take anywhere from couple weeks to a couple months to happen in your tank. Extra water changes and more frequent cleaning of the tank will be necessary until this cycle is complete. Those helpful bacteria live in the sand, on surfaces and MOSTLY in your filter. Don’t sanitize your filters when you clean the tank!
 
With the media we age in our axolotl tanks, you can cheat and have your cycle done for you by Xochi Exotics. We use ceramic filter media in small bags (5 ounces of media) and we keep these bags in filters, or on air line in our aquariums that house our axolotls. We ship this bagged in water like we ship animals and you get live, aged, cycled media to immediately add to your filter (either in the bag or you can open it and do loose stones). Once you have cycled media, your cycle is done!