Revisiting Interceptor

[Whisperer]

I finally decided to treat the whole tank with interceptor after a long hesitation because I was afraid for my cleaner shrimp. I used the brown tablet, I think it is for >50 lb dog. A friend who works at a local vet gave me 3 tabs. Well, 2 days after treatment my cleaner shrimp is still alive but he looks stunned. My skimmer went nuts!!!

Question: When do I need to re-treat? Do I need to repopulate my pods after the full course of treament? I assume the pods are also killed by the interceptor. Should I remove my cleaner shrimp in the succeeding treatments? DO I need to do carbon, water changes after each treatment or will I be OK without them?

[spc1spc1]

I treated every 7 days three times last month. so far no problems. I did take all crabs and shrimp out of the tank(still have not put them back in). and I all so shut down the air intake on the skimmer. so far not a red bug in sight :D

[kikireef]

I was actually just researching the same thing last week. I read where a few tests were done and the recommendations are as follows:

1. Remove all shrimp, crabs, snails or other inverts
2. disconnect the air intake into your skimmer. You want it running but not with air that way the medication gets to everything in your tank.
3. Disconnect all carbon/gfo reactors
4. Keep your Calcium reactor ONline
5. Treat the tank.
6. After 6 or 7 hours do a 25% water change, replug your skimmer, and add new Carbon (as much as you can)
7. Repeat this process in 1 week
8. Repeat process again in another week

This is all the info I got from numerous sites. Much of the info was the same so I believe it to be accurate. I have not done this type of treatment (yet) on my tank but if/when I do these are likely the steps I will take. Also, every site I read said that you will indeed need to repopulate your pop population as they will likely all die in the treatment. Good Luck

[Whisperer]

Thanks. I did not turn off the air intake on my skimmer. Now I know why one should. My skimmer went crazy, like there was soap in my water. Anyways, I actually turned off the return pump and treated the display tank for about 4 hours then I turned the return pump back on to continue treatment on my sump. This is when the skimmer went nuts. I did not do water changes nor carbon, it's been 2 days and everything seems alright. I will do water changes tomorrow after work.

[driftin]

I think the skimmer going nuts was due to the binding agents in the pill. I did an in-tank treatment and followed the procedure kikireef posted. I wasn't able to get all of the shrimp or crabs out of the tank and did not lose any. I was discussing with another local guy and we figure, based on our experiences, people who lose all their ornamental shrimp are probably dosing at a much higher level than the recommendations.

[Fisher72]

I had a similar experence with interceptor. Ended up loosing about 50% of my inverts. Most were on 3rd treatment for some reason.