Interceptor treatment .... again.

[MikeNapoli]

A while back I removed all SPS from my main display and moved them to a 58gallon frag tank and treated all of my SPS with Interceptor. I kept my tank fallow for proper amount of time and when I moved all the SPS back to my display all seemed to be well with no redbugs. About a month ago i noticed I was getting them back and my SPS (certain ones) were no polyping out and looking pretty bad.

I couldn't take it anymore and I decided to treat my display once and for all.

This morning I removed as many snails as I could. I couldn't find one hermit crab but it doesn't matter because I only had a few and I'm not to thrilled about having them. I left them in.

I have one pistol shrimp, a cleaner shrimp, my serpent stars, and a sexy shrimp that i'm a little worried about but i dosed with iodine before the treatment and I heard that this helps with the shrimp.... who knows.

This afternoon around 3:30 I disconected my skimmer airtube, turned off my carbon and phos reactors and I crushed up the Interceptor, mixed it with the tank water and poured it in. It's been over 6 hours and the red bugs are disappearing a little at a time. I'm gonna go ahead and do a 10 or 12 hour treatment this go around and see what happens. Next week i'll do the same treatment and follow up with a third the week after.

I have a 20% water change ready to go and around 2 am this morning i'll put the skimmer, reactors, and run two additional bags of carbon in my sump right after doing a nice water change. I guess I'll let you guys know what happens.

Oh yeah, I took before shots of some of the highly infested corals.

 

[magic]

Good luck Mike.

 

[jonathan.]

Good luck, man!

 

[roadking05]

That really sucks!!! You don't have to remove any snails or serpent stars. They'll be fine. Shrimps and crabs will die, if you don't remove them. QT QT QT nothing goes in my tank unless QT for months.

 

[MikeNapoli]

It's about 9 hours in and my cleaner shrimp is still around. Hermits are dead or dying.

I removed the snails but I noticed that I missed alot. They're still alive.

I'm gonna need alot of pods to bounce back in a few weeks.

Will, if you're reading this ... stock up on reef nutrition please.

 

[REEFLECTIONS]

i used the liquid flat worm exit (bought at aquatic obsessions).... i did have to dose more than once, didn't kill any shrimp, or crabs that i know of, big serpent star was ok, lost some micro brittle stars though.... over all, i found it to be a good product, and with this stuff you can leave the skimmer running, which is good, cause those things let out a lot of toxins when they die...

 

[Phyl]

Interceptor treats red bugs (which aren't red, they're actually very small and mostly yellow). Flat worm exit treats for the flat worms, which are typically red.

Mike, sorry to hear that you're fighting the fight again. Did you introduce anything into your tank without QTing it?

What was your procedure for dosing the first time through?

We pulled as many crabs & shrimp as we could, but there were a few hold outs we couldn't catch. They survived just fine. We kept the dose in the tank for a full week before turning the skimmer back on.

 

[MikeNapoli]

We pulled as many crabs & shrimp as we could, but there were a few hold outs we couldn't catch. They survived just fine. We kept the dose in the tank for a full week before turning the skimmer back on.

Wow, a full week. I was so nervous yesterday that I would lose things like my pipefish or some of my smaller fishes. haha. I guess I was nervous for no reason. My biggest losses were my hermits but they were running a muck anyhow.

Mike, sorry to hear that you're fighting the fight again. Did you introduce anything into your tank without QTing it?

I did get a couple of SPS from here and there, looked over it with a magnifying glass and a light. Dipped in interceptor and TMPCC but I guess that wasn't enough. My fault completely.

The odd thing was none of the new pieces were infested only the same pieces from the first time. I have a really nice bonsai that I got (one of my first sps) started out brown and turned into a beautiful deep purple with super bright green polyps, after getting redbugs the first time the polyps went away and it looked pretty bad..after the first treatment the polyps came back out and it looked really healthy. After a month or two same thing happened and it went to zero polyp extension. This particular SPS is the reason for treating the whole tank. I couldn't take it having a beautiful coral dying slowly.

What was your procedure for dosing the first time through?

The first time I treated I took all my SPS out and treated the 58 gallon 3 weeks in a row and then moved all the SPS back to my display. I figured keeping the tank fallow would kill the redbugs in the display. I either missed something along the way or maybe my dosing wasn't right. I'm not sure at this point.

That really sucks!!! You don't have to remove any snails or serpent stars. They'll be fine. Shrimps and crabs will die, if you don't remove them. QT QT QT nothing goes in my tank unless QT for months.

Danny I did not know that about the snails. I'm not sure I would have risked it had I just read it on the internet but now seeing the few i left behind doing ok, i guess the next treatment I won't have to remove any.

Thanks for the heads up.

The problem for me with QTing is my 58 gallon frag tank seems to kill SPS. I can't figure it out. I put them in and in a couple days they are completly white.

Water tests fine and I have zoas and fish living in there just fine. I do have one monti cap that holds up fine but acros are dead in the water.

 

[Phyl]

What dose were you using on the 58? Did you run carbon or skimmer? How soon? Did you do a water change between doses? If so how much? It sounds like you didn't get them all the first time. Unless you had acro still in your display, I would say that the fallow period was more than acceptable.

 

[MikeNapoli]

On the 58 I used half a yellow pill. Yellow treats 180-200 gallons. So I over dosed each time.

I did 10hour treatments each time. With a 10 gallon water change after each one and ran carbon, no skimmer at the time. I don't think I missed any SPS in the display unless there was some encrusted SPS between rocks or behind the tank but I doubt it. Maybe I had eggsacks after 3 treatments.

 

[Phyl]

One concern I have is that if egg sacs can still be persistant after 3 treatments, how would a dip be a preventative? I can hardly imagine a dip would help in that case?

What I did differently was that I left the meds in for a full week before running carbon or skimmer or doing a water change in hopes that it festering in there would help kill off subsequent generations, should they hatch after the initial treatment. I guess I'll continue to keep my eye out for a reoccurance. How long between your last treatment and you noticing them again?

I check my "canary" every other day looking for possible parasites these days. Hopefully others who have had a reinfestation will share their experience with us.

 

[Baxreefs]

Mike

The little bastages probably survived on the rock in the display until thier meal ticket came back in.

Either way treating the whole tank seemed to be the trick for me. I treateed outside the display over and over without sucsess.

I could not catch my fire shrimp either and it survived. I dosed iodine before and soon after the treatment to help him out too. I left all stars and snails in with no losses either. The only thing I removed were my scarlets and I haven't put the little coral dozing buggers back yet either

 

[MikeNapoli]

Phyl, I noticed more redbugs probably 1 month after. At about 10weeks i noticed it was getting really bad.

I'm gonna try treatment your way and leave the medication in for a whole week. Do you think I should dose properly, overdose, or underdose in that situation?

If I can get my cleaner shrimp out from now until then there will be nothing in there that I wouldn't mind losing. Other than my horses. They shouldn't have an ill effect thought, right?



Bax, I think I'm happy with the actual display dosing. From now on if I see them i'll just nuke them with a treatment. Hopefully this will be the last time for a while.

I'm gonna use my 58 as a holding tank and what i'll do there is treat that tank as a giant dip. When I get new corals i'll put them in there and every so often i'll hit them with an interceptor treatment.

How did you guys get your pods back? Phyl I know your tank setup is huge so having the pods bounce back should have taken a while. I'm guessing?

 

[Phyl]

I dosed 1/2 a white on 575. But I didn't add subsequent doses. We'll see where I am after a couple of months though.

We didn't treat the fuge and we did a decent water change before bringing it back online. I do think we lost our mandarin, but he's never out, so he could just be in hiding?!

 

[Baxreefs]

Mike

I used one 51-100 pound pill for about 250 gal of water and let it soak three days with no skimmer, GFO or Carbon. I treated fuge and all as I was afraid the little vermin might be there already.

Fired up the skimmer put in lots of carbon that I changed daily for three days and did a normal water change. That was easily over two months ago. So far , red bug free ;D

 

[MikeNapoli]

Looks like there are few ways to skin a redbug.

How long do you think i should have to wait to see polyp extension on the infected corals? Today the corals seems to be in the same shape but just without the redbugs on it's exterior.

 

[danthemanj]

I do not quarantine any new coral when I get them but as a matter of practice, I treat ALL coral with Interceptor while I am acclimating it to my water (so about 2 hours). I then treat the acclimated coral with an Iodine dip for about 15 minutes and then treat it with a fresh water dip for 30 seconds. So far, I think its working out. The process doesn't hurt the coral and gets rid of 99% of all pests. The only issue is that the process takes me 3 hours. I do this for ALL coral, softies, LPS and SPS.

 

[MikeNapoli]

I do not quarantine any new coral when I get them but as a matter of practice, I treat ALL coral with Interceptor while I am acclimating it to my water (so about 2 hours). I then treat the acclimated coral with an Iodine dip for about 15 minutes and then treat it with a fresh water dip for 30 seconds. So far, I think its working out. The process doesn't hurt the coral and gets rid of 99% of all pests. The only issue is that the process takes me 3 hours. I do this for ALL coral, softies, LPS and SPS.

How do you account for egg sacks? Interceptor doesn't kill eggs.

 

[Baxreefs]

I just check back in my thread, and I treated my tank/system on June 6. So, just over two months (ninish weeks) and no return of da bugs.

My polyp extention improved as soon as I began skimming again.

The dosing did not kill ALL of my pods, but it did knock back the population for a while. My fuge seems to be back up to spee pod wise. I think my ODs keep my display pretty thin on the pods

 

[blange3]

Hang in there Mike!

LMK if you need water at any point, I usually have between 30 and 50 gallons on hand.

Sooo glad I'm Acro free.