Acros are slowly declining

[Alcohol120]

hows it going everyone, i've been too busy to update my tank thread but i will soon. heres a little bit of prefacing information
-originally got four acro frags about a year ago(two pink millepora, one tri-color, one green one im not sure of the name)
-tri-color never did well but survived until about two weeks ago
-all others did well until about one week ago
-havent done a water change since feb or march. ive been using dr tims waste away and a filter sock to keep the water clear. i clean the filter sock weekly.
-i stopped using dr tims about a month and a half ago and hastily bought it a few days ago to try and fix this problem (i know it probably doesnt matter but it was something i changed right around the time of the decline)
-all other corals/fish/inverts are having a good ol' time

everything was going pretty good until about two weeks ago i noticed my tri-color acro was starting to develop white spots. it never really liked my tank and grew at 1/3 of the rate my other acros so i kinda wrote it off as that one frag not really liking/adjusting to the water chemistry. i wasnt too disappointed to see that one die for those reasons but about a week ago i noticed that one of my pink millies and my other green acro are starting to get little white spots. there is still one pink millie that hasnt been affected yet for whatever reason. the tri-color is like 70% white now, and i can tell by this time next week the other two will probably be looking the same.
im at the point now where i dont want to see a years worth of growth just die right in front of me for no apparent reason (such a rewarding hobby lol) so im reaching out. im just trying to pick the intelligent brains on here to see if there's something easy or simple that i can do before i lose them.

i know i should be doing weekly water changes and testing the water parameters but ive become too busy to do that stuff

heres a link to my tank thread that has photos of the corals throughout their time in my tank
http://www.njreefers.org/showthread.php?81753-40g-mixed-reef

 

[mrehfeld]

It sounds like you know what needs to be done.

First of all you should test your parameters for a baseline. You can't know where you are going if you don't know where you've been or where you are at. What are they?

I tried playing that game where you don't do regular water changes, I lost. I'm not a chemist or expert but I know enough to know regular water changes work, I proved it to myself. This is not to say it can't be done, I know members here who can do it. It's best to keep it simple IMHO.

 

[jgraz]

Have you dipped them yet? Is there a chance that the white spots your seeing are bite marks? Possible flatworms

 

[Alcohol120]

thanks for the replies. i never dipped them, i dont think its flatworms because ive had them for a while now and havent seen any bites and i havent added anything to the tank in the past eight months. i always had a bad feeling that stopping the regular husbandry would eventually blow up in my face, but i kinda suspected it to be worse. i guess i should be grateful its just a handful of acros and i can still keep the rest of my corals hopefully. one thing i noticed was that i have a huge population of little brittle starfish that extend their arms up the base of the corals where there is color loss. that is really only at the base of the corals though so it doesnt explain the top of the tri-color. i have a lot of asterina starfish also but havent seen them near any corals.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I appologize, I stopped reading once I saw this, "havent done a water change since feb or march." I've got to believe you have a water quality issue. Unless you are using a specific system to remove nitrates and phoshates, water changes stabilize sps/lps, and keep them happy

 

[TanksNStuff]

I appologize, I stopped reading once I saw this, "havent done a water change since feb or march." I've got to believe you have a water quality issue. Unless you are using a specific system to remove nitrates and phoshates, water changes stabilize sps/lps, and keep them happy

Sorry, I have to agree with what Paul said too.

Not only do water changes add the necessary trace elements that your corals use up to grow, but they also eliminate some impurities that build up due to feeding, fish waste, etc.

Dr. Tim's is good to use to jumpstart the biological filter, but it shouldn't be counted on to "be" the biological filter. And it doesn't add all the trace elements back either.

If you haven't done a water chance since Feb. or March, I'm guessing your phosphates and nitrates are really high right now. SPS don't like those two elements in the water column.

I would suggest doing about a 50% WC right away, then do some testing to see where you are at, and do another large WC when you see how bad it really is.