Please input on your interceptor experience

[MountainReef]

I am having trouble knowing what to expect in my tank from the use of interceptor for red bugs.

Try as I might my eyes are just not good enough to see the red bugs in my tank. However my LFS point out that I had them on some frags I brought him. When I got home although I couldn't see the red bugs I could see that my Acros were definately turning brown and showing tissue recession. SO I can only see the damage but not the bugs.

I ordered 23mg interceptor tablets. I have a 90 gallon with about 50 gallons in the sump. I decided to error on the side of overkill and dosed last night with 1\2 tablet. This morning my scarlet cleaner shrimp looked no worse for wear. I tried all week to catch him and put him in a seperate tank to no avail. I was under the impression the treatment would kill him. Not being able to see the red bugs and having the shrimp fine I decided to dose again this morning without a water change. So there is now a full tablet in my tank and 5 hours later the shrimp is still good. Is this to be expected? Am I just lucky?

I have no carbon or chemical filtation. I am running a skimmer. Wht do I need to do a water change now? If the tank is handling this treatment load well why not leave it to really zap the little bastards. I have heard some red bugs can develop resistance which is why I decided to overdose the tank. I won't be able to check for pods until tonight with the lights off. I don't see any dead pods floating or laying around the tank.

Sorry to be so long winded. Please comment

[SDguy]

You can read about my experience here, from start to finish (don't worry, it's not too long of a thread ):
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1038678

[MountainReef]

Thanks I'll check it out.

[hubris007]

Intercepter is awesome! I especially like it when mixed with Program in the form of Sentinel.

Just kidding. I haven't used intercepter in my tanks yet. There's a pretty good talking reef episode that covers Intercepter use, though.

[MountainReef]

I am hoping to find anyone who has used it without killing off their shrimp. I have dosed what should treat 380 gallons in only 150 gallons and I am concerned if my shrimp survive then the bugs may also.

Any Insight?

[MountainReef]

It has been 24 hours. No water changes no carbon. Both my shrimp have survived a full tablet of interceptor. Can I expect it has killed the red bugs. I can't see them so I can't check for them.

[flyyyguy]

If after dosing the first time you saw no pods floating in the water column whatsoever.......something is wrong.

I would maybe even guess that you r pills are either old or were stored improperly and impotent.(if that word works here).

[sunfish11]

You should be doing this treatment in a seperate tank from my experience. I wouldn't even think of dosing my display with interceptor...

Lisa

[flyyyguy]

Thats the beauty of interceptor....it CAN be safely used in your display and has been used in many of the nicest sps tanks youve seen

Removing all acros, and tiny encrusted pieces of acros from the tank isnt an option or even realistically possible for some

[sunfish11]

I agree for some trying to remove all encrusted acros would be impossible but by the same token killing all your infauna isn't "safely" either.

Lisa

[melev]

Well, let me add some thoughts.

Originally, I got some Interceptor because of the redbugs that were in our area. Everyone had them in their tanks. I didn't want to treat my tank because it just sounded scary to me.



My vet sold me the kind for large dogs. Same as yours:


After crushing it up carefully until it was mere powder, I dosed a small amount in about 2g of water to treat an infected coral.










After an hour, they were all dead or dying. I used a turkeybaster to blow them off, threw out the water and refilled the tank with more water from my reef to let the coral rinse off for another hour.





Fast forward about a year. Redbugs appeared in my reef again in this coral. Makes sense, since they can crawl right off the coral into the rockwork after all.

So I captured all the hermits I could catch, and scooped out my cleaner shrimp in one swipe of the net (Talk about lucky!). I used the entire pill on my reef that night, leaving the skimmer's air intakes off, running no carbon and no phosban remover. Just circulation in every drop of water in my system.

The next day, 12 hours later, I allowed air to get into the skimmer again to skim heavily. I ran 3 cups of carbon in a Phosban Reactor.

The entire reef was fine, and the redbugs were no more. I even had some sneaky hermits survive the incident. I didn't even do a water change.

All is well and my mandarin still finds food in the reef to eat.

This is one treatment you really don't need to fear at all.

[jdieck]

Two of my cleaner shrimps survived the first dose, they did not the second, my pistol shrimp and a manthis survived the three treatments.
Interceptor will kid most pods and crabs in your tank, the reason to make the water changes and add new carbon after 8 to 12 hours is to remove all traces of the medication so some of the pods could survive and reproduce again.
If you did not shut off your skimmer during treatment it might have removed the medication. Same you need to remove all carbon, turn off ozone if being used and also turn off any phosban or purigen reactors in use.
It is difficult to see the bugs, I have a good powerful magnifying glass.

[MountainReef]

Thanks for the insights. I had read that you need to run the med through everything that has water in it, (sump, Protein skimmer, Calc reactor etc) This because the Red bugs supposedly give live birth and the babies can be free swimming until they find a home. For this reason I left the skimmer running I like the idea of stopping the airflow. This I will do on my second dose. I treated at 2am and went to bed got up at 8 to check the tank and do a water change. If there were pods in the water column they were gone by the time I got up. My interceptor expires 10/09.

Forgot to look for pods last night.

I feel better knowing jdieck's shrimp survived. I have three tanks so reintroducing pods at the end of treatment wont be a problem. I pull a lot of rock out of my sump and put in the other two tanks for this reason. I will leave them out almost two weeks so any stray red bugs should die off.

Sunfish if you accidently knock a piece off an acro any time in the life of your tank it may be living somewhere in your rockwork. This can act as a lifeboat for redbugs in your display when you remove acros to treat separately

[flyyyguy]

you want the skimer running.....but NOT collecting

I use in sump skimmers so I simply remove the collection cup and take off the air line and let it overflow into the sump. If using an external skimmer you want to turn the air off and drop the water level so it doesnt overflow into the cup

I think you skimmed enough of the medication out before it had a chance to kick in that it didnt work.

Mixing your interceptor up in hot ro/di water helps make it more soluble and goes to work much faster. If you dont grind it well or use really cold water to mix it it can take 2-3 hours to even start killing.

[sunfish11]

OK, good information. Maybe it isn't quite as bad as I thought.

Lisa