Update: Well, the treatment in the bucket last week got most of the RB, but apparently not all of them. On Sunday I found two RBs on one acro, but I figure there have to be others, so I decided to treat the full system before bed Sunday night. I added 1/4 of the tablet and waited. Within an hour I saw some dead hermits and no sign of the RB. I checked it in the morning and saw nothing different from the night before. Everything else in the tank was doing just fine. The fish were swimming and eating, the snails were snailing, and all of my SPS, LPS and softies were extended as usual.
I did some research on the Internet and found that no one could give a fact-based reason to remove it after only 6 hours. I did find a few references stating that no one had conducted any tests to determine whether there was a maximum dosage or duration. I've heard that some people use an entire large Interceptor pill and go for the big kill all at once rather than 2 or 3 treatments. I decided to go for a 24-hour treatment with just the initial dosage and see if it had the same effect as a single, large dose.
Well, I got home last night and the water was slightly cloudy, no doubt a bloom caused by the pod and hermit die-off. Interestingly, I noticed that some of the hermits were still active even after 24 hours with Interceptor, even though some had died within the first hour. I'm hoping the 24 hour treatment was enough to kill off all the red bugs in a single treatment. Since it killed those hermits so fast, I figure the RB are probably toast too. I figure if there's no sign of RB in 2 weeks they're probably all gone, but I'll continue to monitor.
I did a 20% water change last night and put a bunch of new carbon in the bag and attached the opening of the bag around the tank return line so the return water flows directly through all of the carbon. I'm going to do another 20% change tonight and replace the carbon again tomorrow. Before I consider adding new pods and hermits, I'll do a third 20% water change.
Other than the crustacean die-off, I haven't seen any negative effects on anything else. My fish SPS, LPS, softies and snails are all doing fine--active, eating, extended, etc. I think water quality is the only real issue now. The bacteria bloom could reduce oxygen levels, so water changes are certainly necessary to keep things from going downhill.
