Total disaster!

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Pisces

Night Owl
Mar 4, 2002
80
1
8
Fayetteville, AR
Real Name
Lisa
Recently there was total devastation in my big tank and I can't figure out why. I lost all four fish within 2 days, a bunch of scarlet hermits and blue-legged hermits, and so far one coral (a Eunicea mammosa) is dead. All other coral polyps have been closed since the first fish was found dead. The only corals that seem to be unaffected are the 2 open brains. I'm doing some gradual water changes but I'd like to know what the problem was to begin with.
I've run all the tests that I have available to me but the results are pretty normal and nothing points to a cause for everything to just die so suddenly.
It's a 125 gallon reef and has been running about 4 years. There has been a red slime problem for some time now, but that's it.
Before the first fish died, my husband had added some carbon to the Penguin filter (it's normally just for water flow). He used a safe carbon that we've used before. A few days after the first fish died he added some aragonite sugar sand to the substrate.The next day all the other fish had died and then the hermits started dropping like flies.
Here are the test results from yesterday, I'd appreciate any ideas you may have.

pH- 8.2 Salinity- 30 Calcium- 450 Buffer- 300+
Ammonia- 0.25mg (from the dead critters- never had any ammonia before) Nitrite- 0 Nitrate- 0 Phosphate- 0.2ppm Silicate- 1ppm

I'm thinking this disaster was due to a lack of oxygen because I've never had fish die so suddenly before. I've seen sick fish hang on for an eternity before finally dying. My husband thinks the skimmer adds enough air to the tank but I wonder if it really does. I've added more air just in case.
 

Pisces

Night Owl
Mar 4, 2002
80
1
8
Fayetteville, AR
Real Name
Lisa
I suppose I'll never know what happened. I did find one lone surviving turbo snail last night which is strange since snails seem to die at the drop of a hat. There were 5 little hermits that were still alive so they've been moved to the 55g tank which is still doing fine. Anyway, now we're doing some major cleaning, re-arranging and water changes in the tank and we won't re-stock any fish until everything is in the clear again.
 
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