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[snowham12345]

So my Axolotl, toothless is having a huge problem with his tank. It’s a 15 gallon (which yes is on the small side but more on that later)
I left and went on vacation for 8 days. He had a pet sitter caring for him. When I was gone his filter stopped working and his leftover food/waste created a pretty bad ammonia spike. The tank water was so cloudy. I immediately did a huge water change to try to correct it, which didn’t work. This morning the parameters were very bad so I took toothless out and put him in a small holding tank until I can get this sorted out. I know that sand can contribute to ammonia spikes so I took the sand out of this tank and disposed of most of the water. I still have a little bit and I have his filter media in water.
I’ve been planning to upgrade toothless for quite some time now so I decided that since everything was out of the tank it would be a good time to upgrade him so I moved the old tank and got the repaired filter up with a new 20 gallon. I’ve still gotta get a lid and some sort of substrate tomorrow (probably fake aquarium grass and/or slate- maybe new sand but idk)
I’m worried about the cycle. I don’t want to put him back in the 15 gallon, frankly because it’s pretty small and I want him to have enrichment but I’m struggling with the commitment to move him to the 20. I may be moving to another city in the next year or so and it might be tricky to move the 20. I don’t know what options I really have though. Any ideas on what to do about this problem??