Loss of color question.....
 

Two weeks ago I went from a HOT Remora skimmer on my 58 to a 15 gallon sump with a Octopus NW150 skimmer. It was night and day the difference in skimmate. Off topic....

Anyway within a few days I noticed that one acro started bleaching, several lost color including monti digi's, caps and a stag. Most colors looked washed out.

Could the new skimmer have had that much of an impact on the tank? The only other changes was replace the Phoenix 14K lamp 2.5 prior to the sump change.

Water perm are as follows:

Temp 78.3
pH 78.5 lights out
Po4 0
Ca 420
Alk 3.38
Mg 1200

Since the octopus is working much better then the remora, your water clarity could be much greater (fewer organics to block light). They could be mildly bleaching due to increased light intensity.

I would decrease your photoperiod or place some sort of screen over the tank. Are you running carbon as well? This can greatly increase water clarity as well. You have been underskimming for so long the built up DOC, phenols, yellowing agents have been decreasing the amount of light in the tank. I think you get my drift. Another way to mitigate is more feeding the corals/tank. You are about to learn more about the all important nutrient balance in your system.

No carbon.

I always knew my tank was underskimmed by some but not this much. Should I adjust the skimmer down some?

Nutrient balance? I guess I need to get the the refug up to help start exporting some stuff. What would suggest as to feeding the tank? More phyto etc.

Will my color come back somewhere down the road?

The colors should come back as the corals adjust. I would think they would come back better than ever if you keep the nutrients low. I wouldn't start feeding more though. The whole point in getting a better skimmer was to lower the nitrates. You don't want to offset a good thing by over feeding. Just my .02.

I don't want to loss the sale of the Remora, but NW150 is pulling out as much skimmate in a few days as it took the Remora to remove in a month. And to top it off, I need to wear a gas mask. Smells terrible.

Do you think it would help if I put my old lamp back on for a few weeks.

I wouldn't go back to the old lamp. Instead, run the new lamp for half of your normal time. And everyday, increase it by 2 hours until you are back up to your normal lighting period.

definitely shock from the new light and not the new skimmer.

Lower your photo period or place some screening ontop of the tank until your corals had time to adjust. Then slowly increase the light intensity over the next few weeks.

Well, the lamp has been on for 41 days now. Should I still cut back the photo period?

Hmmm... Have you had any sudden swing in Alk?

Nope............

A friend of mine brought his par meter over today and we did some measurements.

I was real surprised by the reading of the old lamp vs. the new. Almost 20%. The new lamp had a reading of 1320 on the surface where the old lamp had a reading of 1119. IMO the old lamp at 8 months old really did not need changing based upon the par. There is a good chance the specturm probably changed.

So I beleive the combination of the new lamp and new skimmer probably was the cause of the corals browning and bleaching just as everyone speculated.