All Hermits Died after treating LR with Intercepter

[o2zen]

Ok I treated my LR in a QT for a bug then put the LR back in the main display and everything was fine. I woke up the next morning with all of my Hermits upside down and hanging half out of their shells. OK so are they dead, stunned, in shock, etc because some of them seem to twitch or move(come out of the shell alittle or go into the shell) then go back to the dead look again.

My questions - are they dead or in shock or something? How long do you think it will be until I can put more Hermits in the tank if they are dead. I drained the LR after I treated and I did a 20% water change and added charcoal to the tank after I put the LR back in but I guess the drug was still strong enough to mess with them. It has not bothered my shrimp so I assume it is because of how close to the rock the Hermits get when crawling on it compared to the Shrimp.

I have left all of the dead looking Hermits in the tank for now but how will thie effect my water quality? A few of them have been eaten by the Cleaner shrimp already.

Help...

 

[BrianPlankis]

Intercepter does not play nice with hermit crabs and it could be the cause of your hermits going belly up.

You seem to be approaching removing the chemical the best you can, but your LR may continue to release it for some time. I would continue to do water changes (at least another 2 20% changes), keep running carbon (actively if you can) and remove any hermits your cleaner shrimp starts eating (as it could get additional chemical by eating them).

Keep an eye on your ammonia as well, if it starts climbing then it would be a good idea to remove any hermits that appear dead and increase the frequency and size of the water changes. Unfortunately with treating your LR in Intercepter you probably killed off far more life than the hermits, so it could also add ammonia to the tank.

Brian

 

[o2zen]

I treated the LR in a QT tank and yeah it killed off more than I would have liked. I wish I could of avoided it but I had some bad isopods eatting my fish. I just hope I got them all or the Hermits would have died for nothing.

I drained the LR for awhile before putting it back in my tank but figured the LR would give off some chemical release but figured that 30gals of clean water would dilute it enough not to harm my inverts.

What do you mean by running Carbon actively?

 

[BrianPlankis]

Carbon is much more efficient at removing gunk out of the water if it is run through a reactor instead of just in a bag. By forcing water through the carbon in an enclosed container (reactor) it filters the water a lot better.

There are many reactors out on the market to run carbon, one of them by two little fishies (their PhosBan Reactor 150).

For those of you reading this in the future, there is an alternative to chemically dosing a tank for cirolanid isopods (I'm assuming you had these). I detailed the stinky water trap in my article:

Cirolanid Isopod Capture Techniques, Feeding Habits and Mortality Testing:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/bp/index.php

Brian

 

[o2zen]

I tried the stinky water trap for 4 days without any luck so I finally dosed the tank. Of course my jar might have been too big or in the wrong spot, etc.

I really did not want to dose my tank at all. I miss my Hermits, they were awesome

 

[o2zen]

I did a ton of research and even figured I would not bother but then I saw the isopod on my Clown again and that was it, I needed to rid my tank of it.

The good thing that came of it is I caught my gorilla crab and found out that Intercepter also kills bristle worms I did not know I had any until I dosed the LR and 5 came out to die on the glass. I also lost things I bet were better for my tank and wish that stupid Isopod had never shown itself.