my (long) nitrate journey

[basano]

Day 0 - bare bottom/starboard, no live rock, all base rock, sump in basement, filter socks in sump, ~125 gallons of water, 150 lbs rock

Day 1 - added ammonia from bottle (day 1 to week 2 was actually about 6 months, i wanted to see if my ammonia level would change or nitrites would register >0, they didn't)

Week 2 - added 2 vendors bacteria in a bottle

Month 2 - tank converting ammonia to nitrates, 2 clownfish, 2 skunk cleaner shrimp added

At this point nitrates never leveled off, would only go down with water changes

Wanted coral that doesn't like high nitrates, nitrates had to be corrected before being added

7 months - 1/4 town flooded, but not me, but towns water supply was low and not safe to drink, so i let my tank go until towns water back to normal

During this time with no water changes nitrates showed solid red on api with no water changes

1.5 years/Current - 0 nitrates, cloudy tank, happy happy joy joy, just waiting for tank to clear up



What fixed it...no idea, but know what changed...both api and hanna showing a phosphate level
Never had anything other than 0 phosphates with api, and hanna 713. I understand non commercial testers are not accurate so i never considered this for over a year as an issue.

My tank has never seen any product specifically designed to get rid of phosphates. I'm sure I have had products that also remove phosphates, but not just for that purpose.


Fish Food

nls pellets(daily), prime reef flakes(daily), omega super carnivore once a week, but only a small portion of the block


Products tried for nitrate reduction (keep in mind I only have 2 shrimp, 2 clowns and a bb tank i can see any accumulation)

(not in order)
biopellets (2 different companies, one tried for 6 months, the other for 4)
microbacter7 (about 2 months as only thing, also used a bit with the pellets)
vinegar (about 3 months)
sugar (about 3 months)
vodka (about 3 months)
io natural nitrate reducer (about 2 months)
prodibio (6 weeks, once a week)
chaeto (3 times, melted each time)
ulva (would not die, would not grow)
red gracilaria (died slowly)
Mangroves (not sure if they are doing anything, but dont look dead, and dont think they have changed size)

I was literally 1 day away from adding phosphates (got the product the night before) to see if it would make a difference when my tank started to cloud up. For 2 weeks prior, was dosing sugar for the second time (cheap)

In time I might be able to come up with what really happened, but currently only 3 things seem to make sense.
My rocks where absorbing the phosphates and saturation occurred.
Added small snails and think some were dead, never had them before, wont have them again once these ones die off. Do dead snails add a lot of phosphate?
Something in my tank/dropped in my tank added phosphates and my problem will be back once those phosphates are gone.

My nitrates dropped from around 40 to 0 in about 3 days.

For the record, I only know what I test for, phosphate is the only thing that has changed, that doesn't mean it had to be the phosphate level, but its the only tested item that changed.
tests I have done include ph, ca, mg, nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, carbonate hardness, sg

tank - 75G, sump rubbermaid 100G (half full), mp40 powerhead, swc 160 skimmer, filter socks, apex for salinity, ph, temp, lights, 1.025sg, oceanic salt mix, RODI water

[acabgd]

After all this chemistry I still didn't get if you tested for phosphates and what was the level?