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Thread: ACF not eating and shedding excessively. Help?

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    Default ACF not eating and shedding excessively. Help?

    My African clawed frog hasn't been eating properly for a few months. She started off taking much longer than usual to swallow her food, and spitting it out and wrestling with it for quite a while before she eventually swallowed it. This has got worse over time and now she won't eat anything at all. Over the past few weeks she's hardly eaten anything (and nothing at all for just over a week now). She puts the food in her mouth but then she spits it out after a while because she can't seem to swallow it. After trying it once, she loses interest altogether lately. She's also shedding excessively. I notice bits of skin hanging off her (and attached to the plants in the tank) on most days. She's getting very thin. Her stomach area is all sunken in while her chest protrudes because she's lost so much weight. What could be causing these symptoms and is there anything I can do to help her? Tonight I put her in a mini tank on her own for an hour with chopped earthworms and reptomin, but she wasn't bothered. I added some bloodworms (I don't normally feed her these) and she started to nibble them but then spat them back out.

    I keep her in a 180 litre tank with 2 other ACFs, who are both completely fine. I hand feed my frogs every couple of days (but been trying to feed her every day since she's been struggling). I've had her for 4 years and I think she's about 4 and a half. I do 30% water changes every week and treat new water with seachem prime. I noticed recently that there was something wrong with the seachem prime solution as it was dropping the PH in the tank to 6. I got a new bottle last week and it's now at 6.4. I'm hoping this will get higher when I do another water change. I don't know if this could be the reason? Ammonia is 0ppm, nitrites are 0ppm and nitrates are always below 20ppm. Tank decor is sand, wood and plants. I haven't added anything new in over a year.

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    Default Re: ACF not eating and shedding excessively. Help?

    I know ACF's can suddenly refuse to eat and 'fast', but the weight-loss paired with the tattered skin makes me really think it's not her just fasting.

    Both the loss of appetite and shedding in tatters is a sign of stress/irritants in the water. Because your ammonia, nitrites, and nitrate levels are all normal, I would have to assume it's because of that pH. Perhaps the lower pH started to irritate her more so than it did to the others, which explains her not eating and the excessive shedding.

    How many liters is the new tank you transferred her to? And do you have any pictures?

    All I can suggest is that you keep her in quarantine and preform daily water changes (if you don't have a filter to spare). See if you can add a hiding place in her tank (a cave/terra cotta pot/etc) so she'll hopefully feel less stressed, and try everyday to feed her live food like a night crawler. Keep a close eye on her to make sure these aren't symptoms of any illnesses or perhaps an internal parasite.

    And hopefully some other people will have some ideas too
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