Interceptor no longer being produced

[Chad]

My wife called this to my attention tonight.

 

Novartis, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures "interceptor" has discontinued the product. I confirmed it by going to their website and seeing the message. I suppose this should fully push the reefing community into using a bayer dip.

 

http://www.interceptor.novartis.us/

[sachabballi reef]

well since bayer is easily accessible to all it may end up reducing the population of the bugs.....

i wonder if sentinel has the same active ingredients?

[hypertech]

It hasn't been available for a long time. We had to switch our dogs to something else over a year ago.

[Chad]

They halted production a while back, but this is the first word that it has been discontinued and will not be produced again.

[basser9]

Just get INTERCEPTOR SPECTRUM from australia thats what we all use.

[Coral Hind]

Interceptor Spectrum not only has the Milbemycin oxime from the original Interceptor but also contains Praziquantel in it. I don't think it is a strong enough dose to also help with internal parasites.

[Der ABT]

actually i believe the contents are this

23 mg of milbemycin oxime and 228 mg of praziquantel

 

and if im not mistaken its like 60 times the normal amount of prazi but i could be wrong, im horrible with dosages for treatments....thats what i have my membership and local fish store for (Sean in particular)

quote stolen from another website

"The information on prazi pro contents is hard to find. I found one reference that lists the ingredients as: oxibisproparanol( as an inert solubilizing agent) and < % 5 praziquantel. The recommended dose per HIkari ,the manufacturer, is .25ml per gallon ,so if we assume,%5 is %4, that would be: .04x.25 =.01 mg per gallon as a "safe" dose.

The usual interceptor milibemycin oxime dose is 23 mg for up to 380 gallons or .06mg per gallon.

A 380 gallon tank would get 228mg of praziquantel with a large dog Spectrum tablet. The "safe" dose or prazi pro , the Hikari product, would be only .01 x380 or 3.8mg,60 times less. I don't know if the higher concentration of praziquantel would be harmful at the higher concentration or not but 60x the usual dose is a lot to worry about."

[Coral Hind]

I'm no math wizard so someone else please check my perception and math on this. I don't agree with that person's info or math as I see it. According to the Prazipro's site it produces a concentration of 2.5mg/l and not the .25ml/g they stated.

 

We know from the past for red bugs we dose a large dog tablet per 380g of tank water. The large tablet has about 228mg of praziquantel from what I've read. So a dose per PraziPro directions for 380 gallons would be figured as there is 1,438 liters and 2.5mg is needed for each liter. You would need 3,565mg and since it has a less then 5% praziquantel, let's say 4.5% you would get 162mg of praziquantel in a PraziPro dose for 380g. So to my WV public education math an Interceptor Spectrum would have a 1.4 dose of PraziPro which is far less than 60 times the dose they stated. So it does seem like enough prazi is in the Spectrum tablet to be effective and it doesn't look like too much.

 

380gallons = 1,438liters

2.5mg x 1,438liters = 3,595mg

3,595mg x 4.5% = 162mg

 

http://ah.novartis.com.au/pethealth_products/interceptor_spectrum_tasty_chews.html/section/469

http://www.uskoi.com/prazipro.htm

[Der ABT]

Look dave, it was on the internet so it must be true...but now this is on the internet...>WHAT DO I DOOOO.....i know trust your math rather than some random person....

 

ive heard people using it with success but i just remembered reading about the overdose so i pulled that up....i didnt check any math cause i havent had a need to use it, just was nice to know about an option still out there...

[Origami]

If one large tablet contains 228 mg praziquantel and this is dosed into 380 gallons (1438 liters), then that dosage corresponds to 228/1428 0.159 mg/l praziquantel per liter of tankwater.

 

It appears from this site that Prazi Pro comes in two different products - one is called Aquarium Solutions Prazi Pro, the other Pond Solutions Prazi Pro. Each is dosed slightly differently, but the dosage results in 2.5 mg/l of praziquantel. This is a little more than 15 times the concentration that results from the dosage using the Interceptor Spectrum tablet. (That is, dosing 1 tablet into 380 gallons will result in less than 1/15 of the dosage that you would use to treat parasites.)

 

BTW, the MSDS for (Pond Solutions) Prazi Pro gives a little insight into the specific gravity of the product (1.05 to 1.06) which can lead you, if you trust the label's claim that 16 ounces treats 3200 gallons and assume that this corresponds to the 2.5 mg/l dosage, to the conclusion that the Pond Solutions Prazi Pro is 6.1% praziquantel. Since 1 ounce of this product treats 32 gallons, and 1 ounce of the Aquarium Solutions product treats only 20 gallons, you can infer that the Aquarium Solutions product is only 62.5% the strength of the Pond Solutions product. This leads us to believe that the Aquarium Solutions Prazi Pro contains about 3.8% praziquantel by weight.

 

Like Evan, I've never had to use it so this is just a thought exercise.

[SaltLife]

Since we are on the topic of intercepter. Does any heartworm medicine for dogs work for red bugs? Does the bayer dip remove red bugs?

[Origami]

Since we are on the topic of intercepter. Does any heartworm medicine for dogs work for red bugs? Does the bayer dip remove red bugs?

Bayer dip does kill red bugs. See the presentation here, scrolling down about 3/4 of the way through the slides.

[Coral Hind]

Thanks for correcting the math Tom. I was hoping you or Chad would chime in. So then it does seem the prazi in the Spectrum tablets is weak which is fine since it is mainly used for the red bugs.

[Origami]

...So then it does seem the prazi in the Spectrum tablets is weak which is fine since it is mainly used for the red bugs.

Yes. That's how I'm seeing it at least. The dosage in the tablet is less than 1/15 of that which the folks that make Prazi Pro recommend for treatment of parasites. I don't know, though, if there are side effects to this relatively low dose, though. I guess that the only way we'll know is to look at what reporting other hobbyists are making on the topic as this other product is being used.

[basser9]

A ton of us use SPECTRUM it is harmless in a reef unless you have a love for fanworms.

 

Plus our friends from down under are easy to deal with.