Devastating Nitrate Spike

Ugh, this is the shittiest update but here it goes: after completely cycling the tank and getting the nitrates and nitrites down to 0 I was getting ready to make my fish order when suddenly the tank crashed HARD. Nitrates spiked to over 200ppm which is where the test results cap so how high it really was is still a mystery. Half my plants broke under the sudden change and died, the shrimp disappeared, bizarrely the two danios seem unphased and continue to spend every waking hour spawning. They must be bombproof. The snail also just kept on eating (must have an endless stomach, my God it never stops.) So what happened?! The ONLY thing I’d done was top off the tank with 2 gallons of tap water when it evaporated. This house waited until the two-month cycle was nearly complete to gut punch me when I thought everything was smooth sailing. Since this is what happened to the saltwater tank years ago I had been testing the tap periodically for months and it always read 0. Not anymore. I’m at a loss, not sure what to do. A complete water change (starting over) or a large water change will most likely shock the remaining life to death but this could take months to resolve on its own. Luckily the test I took today says its gone down dramatically in 24 hours. It’s now at about 180ppm which is still WAY high but its improvement. Meanwhile one lone shrimp showed up last night clinging to the castle like the blue resistance. I think I’m going to see about adding more plants to quicken the process, then buy more snails and shrimp when everything is stabilized again. I need a bigger cleaning crew. MAYBE fish after that. *sigh*

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