Interceptor Help

[Mark 75g]

Well, I have seen red bugs crawling over my sps. I have taken some rocks out and treated but they are now on other sps that I can not take out, so I decided to treat the entire tank.

I have a 175 bow front with appx 150lbs or so of rock. I have a appx 25 gallons of water in my sump.

I went to Melves reef and the article that he has linked says 1 pill of 25mg should treat appx 380gallons. I figure I have about half of that because of rock. So I decided to use half the pill.

Followed the directions but after about 5 hours I still have to fire red shrimp crawling around(tried for 2 days to catch & gave up) and just saw a hermit crab walking around.

Not sure if I did not dose enough of the interceptor or not because I thought for sure they would be dead after 5 hours.

Should I just wait 3 days and treat again with higher dosage? Put More in today?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Gilby]

the bugs will hang around for awhile. They should eventually release and die. Make sure you do three treatments to ensure they are eradicated.

 

[Gilby]

how may hours did you treat your tank for? Did you take your skimmer offline? Did you take carbon out while dosing?

 

[Mark 75g]

I shut down my dual carbon & phospate reactor and I took the line off the skimmer so no bubbles.

I am on the 6th hour right now.

I am just not sure I treated with enough medication because of the shrimp still alive and the hermit crab.

 

[Gilby]

You should be fine. Just give it time. Crabs and shrimp don't always die. Sometimes they will make it. It doesn't mean you didn't dose enough, they were just lucky. By the third treatment though, most crabs and shrimp die.

 

[Gilby]

You can take a turkey baster and blow the bugs off the corals.

 

[Mark 75g]

Thanks for the help

 

[Mark 75g]

Just looked this morning and I do not see any red bugs. Just wondering if I should treat tank again. I also saw many star fish that I have never seen before and also have 3 shrimp still in tank and would hate to lose everything.

Any thoughts.

 

[Gilby]

Yes you need to do TWO more treatments, to ensure all the red bugs are taken care of. You would hate to leave it and a few months down the road have them come back and treat again. Starfish are not affected by interceptor. If you want your shrimp to survive i would suggest moving to another tank for the remainder of the treatment.

 

[finch6013]

How close together do you need to do the treatments? I will be dosing soon also and have no idea what I am doing.

 

[Gilby]

Three treatments one week apart.