Hi Frog forum,
This will probably be a long and unnecessarily detailed post, so if you want you can skip to the pictures and give your opinion on what happened.
I recently purchased a captive bred 3-month old Phyllomedusa bicolor from a pet store and had it shipped to me (8 hour transit time).
When I received the frog he was in a plastic cup pressed against the plastic sides and sleeping. He sustained a few red rubbings from the ride on his dorsal side that persisted throughout his lifespan. A beautiful frog, favorite activity: sleeping on leaves.
Anyway I kept his tank around 80F during the day and 78F at night, with humidity averaging from 40-50%, proper conditions from what I've read for a Waxy monkey juvenile. 50W basking light during the day, and 50W moonlight at night, also a 13W Repti Glo 2.0 compact which provides the small amount of UVB essential for juvenile health. A water dish was filled with distilled water, but i never saw him bathe in it. Occasional misting with distilled water which actually should have been dechlorinated tap water to give him some critical minerals, but not a huge problem over this short time period.
Anyway he adjusted well to the cage, changing sleeping position from leaf to leaf on most days. He was eating crickets gut loaded with Flukers high calcium diet and appeared healthy for around ten days. Then one morning I found him on the ground, on the maple branch I found in a park, that i sterilized in the oven at 250F for 3 hours, but didnt rinse with water or boil tannins out (is this the source of infection?) He went from blue-green to dark brown over night and lost alot of weight. He wasn't eating for at least 3 days before this. I removed the branch immediately.
Ok, so i moved him to a leaf, you can see how skinny he is.
After about 3 hours I got the unflavored Pedialyte to give him an electrolyte bath (1 pedialyte to 10 water).
When moving the frog into the bath with latex gloves on, he was amenable to being perched on my finger. His motor control was not impaired at all.
He made squeezing movements with his body like he was trying to absorb the water. After a 30 min soak, i transferred him to a leaf. He had filled out and over 3 hours turned progressively greener.
So i thought he might be recovering. The next morning he was on the ground looking green and okay. Then after work i got home, and he had gotten skinny again, even worse, dark brown and on the ground. Tried to give him another bath,
Not looking good. I tried force feeding him later on but his mouth was too small and i couldnt get it open. He turned very brown during the procedure..anyway I tried to put him back on a leaf but he could barely stay on it, motor control was pretty much gone. So i put him in the bath knowing he was going to die, and he was dead in the water the next morning.
Here's his belly. I'm hoping its a clue to what caused him to die, i will call the pet store soon to see if the red spots are normal. The white spots are part of a natural coloration pattern as you can see in the first pic
It got me reading about Red Leg in frogs, with a study published in 1903 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2124577/). The research said the frogs were infected with a baccilus some type of bacteria that may have entered through an abrasion, like the kind my frog had from shipping..but also Chytrid seems to produce a red leg sort of thing. Additionally, other sources say that red leg can be more nebulous like stress. But the deterioration in my frog was so sudden, overnight. that i think it may have been some toxin on the unwashed branch (that i sterilized in the oven!), kicking myself for not washing it..
Anyway i sort of want to figure out the cause because i dont know how i should treat my terrarium with substrate, sphagnum covering, and live plants in it before i get another frog..plants and all substrate materials purchased from a reliable vendor..
What went wrong? and what is red leg really...