Interceptor for amphipods

[Ron448]

So I have recently set my 28 nano cube back up after about 6 months of no tank and before that I had it going for about 4 years straight, and had a 55 for 2 years before the nano cube. I've been getting a lot of zoanthid frags lately and many of them are doing great and growing new polyps really fast and then out of nowhere they will close up and look irritated for a few days and slowly come back and then it happens to a different frag. In all my years In the hobby I've thought and been told that amphipods are good but just recently have read posts from people saying that they can eat zoanthids and other soft corals and I'm almost certain that they have started doing this in my tank. I've searched the forum and know the interceptor routine and treatment but I'm just not quite sure if I can leave all my soft and Lps corals in there. If anyone has treated their tank with interceptor before please give me some insight about leaving the coral in the tank.
Thanks

[mr.maroonsalty]

I left it in my dog, he is still fine. What you are talking about has been thousands of times to kill a certain acro eating pod.

[Ron448]

Yeah it kills all crustaceans and I want to know if i can leave my corals in the tank while I do the treatment or if I have to remove them

[REEFBUILDER1]

Get a Mandarin
They will take care of the pods

[cleverbs]

yes you can leave the corals in, I have used it many times. It will kill the pods for sure.

[Ron448]

I don't think mandarins eat the amphipods. I know they eat Copepods but the Copepods are not what I'm trying to get rid of. And I only have a 28 gallon with about 15 lbs of live rock which I don't think will support a mandarin for very long and I don't really want to add any more fish than my two clowns. And cleverbs thanks for that tip. I also am not running a skimmer does that make any difference that you know of? Or make it harder to get the interceptor out of the system with out a skimmer?

[mr.maroonsalty]

Yeah it kills all crustaceans and I want to know if i can leave my corals in the tank while I do the treatment or if I have to remove them

Yes people have treated their tanks to kill tegastes acroporanus thousands of times. There would be no other way to use this medicine to kill a coral pest without treating the coral. The way this should be done is to remove and treat the coral seperate from the tank saving the lives of innocent tank dwellers that will also fall, but that often is not easy to do. I would like seeing more threads about zoa peditory pods because, one thing I do know about pods is that they are usually secondary only finding niche on the already weakened.

[REEFBUILDER1]

I don't think mandarins eat the amphipods. I know they eat Copepods but the Copepods are not what I'm trying to get rid of. And I only have a 28 gallon with about 15 lbs of live rock which I don't think will support a mandarin for very long and I don't really want to add any more fish than my two clowns. And cleverbs thanks for that tip. I also am not running a skimmer does that make any difference that you know of? Or make it harder to get the interceptor out of the system with out a skimmer?

Oh my bad
How in the world did you get amphipods in your aquarium you should start qt tank remove all corals and place in qt do a coral dip and treat the dt without the corals inside

[AdamNC]

A Dottyback will make quick work of your larger pods.

[Ron448]

I think what I'll do is pull out whatever frags are not already attached to rocks that way I can save some Copepods so they can repopulate. Most of my polyps are doing great and then all of a sudden some will be closed up for a few days and even missing tentacles from their skirts. I have two clown fish in quarantine and this Friday will mark week 10 with no fish in my DT which I haven't been feeding much which I think might be why the pods are eating my polyps. Also I have a ton of these Isopods pictures in the link here: http://www.melevsreef.com/node/417
And I see them crawling all over my polyps as well but they are to small for me to tell if they are eating them or not. I don't think the small Isopods are though mainly the amphipods I'm concerned about

[Ron448]

Didn't see those new posts till after my last one but I really don't want to add another fish because if I get it locally I'm absolutely going to have to quarantine them. Lfs is not trustworthy and quarantine takes weeks to do and the clownfish I do have I got from liveaquaria and they had white poop when I got them and later took them to a vet because prazipro, paraguard, and metronidazole did not fix the problem and the vet told me they had nematodes which isn't cured by any of the other three medicines. But yeah a lot of people think amphipod a are good including me up until like 2 weeks ago so I let them in. Now I'm gonna be a lot more cautious when adding things and I'm getting one more round of frags and then I'm done adding things to my tank cuz it's just about full

[Ron448]

So literally like 2 minutes ago I just found some interceptor at my house but the expiration date is January of 2013. I know some medicine doesn't change much after it expires but idk about interceptor. Has anyone tried with expired tablets? I'm going to google it right now

[CStrickland]

I agree on no fish, though it's not like the dottyback will starve without them so that's not a silly idea. But it isn't worth overstocking the tank over. If you have a pod-prone tank, and amphipods really "bug" you :) then something to eat them seems nice. My filter sock grabs one on occaisional too. I think its a little early to say whether your tank is one that pods like a lot for some reason though. I think these pod explosions are like a cycle that a lot of tanks go through in the first few months. Idk, something about populations stabilizing I guess. Personally, I'd probably let it level out on its own and maybe qt some frags that seem bothered, unless you are really sure it's a pest form.

It's not clear whether you are dealing with coral red bugs or regular amphipods, I think red bugs are worse. If it's normal amphipods and you go nuclear on them, it's pretty likely they will pop up again sooner or later. If it's red bugs, I'd kill them by any means necessary and treat future purchases. Just my $.02, Im pretty new at the corals, but I dig all the diff hitchhikers so I'm curious to see how this plays out.

[Ron448]

I think pods do like my tank though. This tank is only 3 months old and my glass is almost completely covered in Copepods and isopods. Pretty much anywhere on my glass you look you can see them. I've got other posts with pictures and a video you can check out if you go to my profile. One I'm pretty sure i got an amphipod taking a bite of one my zoas on video. Also if it were something I was doing wrong or something in the water they should all be doing bad but it's like individual frags look bad and close up for a few days and then come open back up after a while and others are growing like crazy. I've even seen tentacles from their skirts missing. I'll post some growth pics when I get my computer back in the next couple days too

[Ron448]

Does anyone know if interceptor kills snails or not also?

[Peter Eichler]

Snails should be fine