Quote Originally Posted by coffeebaron View Post
Thank you to all, and Royce, thank you for offering to help solve my mystery- I'll take some pics of the enclosure and post them tomorrow (bear with the time delay for uk hours)

I'd heard conflicting infor regards the temps, as i'd read in a care guide when young to keep them in lower to mid 70's, and raise them to near 80 when grown on. I will find a link to this care guide so as to highlight.

the humidity level I unfortunatley had not monitored with a guage (naieve mistake,I have never had to with snakes and underestimated the prospective need to with frogs and i'm used to the dial gauges not being wonderfully acurate), however I was giving him 3 mistings a day using de-chlorinated tap water *(tetra aquasafe) and his substrate and enclosure never dried out. He had a small exo terra rock dish to soak in,however I only ever saw him go and use it breifly once. This was changed daily and again with de-chlorinated tap water.

He was fed small locust/crickets and wax worms(very sparingly with the wax worms) these were pre-fed with potato/egg plant and dusted with komodo frog formula vit powder.

unfortunately I didn't think to photograph the corpse-he had no visible blemishes or bacterial growth, and was still moist and soft.eyes were clear. The only distinguishing aspect was when I found him he was on his back and slightly darker in colouration to the rear of his body/legs.

I did use sphagnum moss in his tank as I knew it to aid in humidity, however I do wonder if this could have been ingested? as said the bedding was Exo Terra Plantation Soil Single Pack 8.8L

excuse the size of the link

Oh regards the heat source, I was utilising the transfered heat from the ceramic that heats my rosy boas tank. this is hooked up to a thermostat with temp gauge. The heat was only covering 50% of his tank and was producing the steady heat of 73/4 air temp over the heat source. I understand this may not have been the most suitable method, but the figures seemed correct and suitable to me when I was setting his tank up and taking readings. I used an exo terra digital thermometer.

Incidentally my Whites are heated by an exo terra heat mat wrapped aroud the side of their tank. So far all is well with them, however I am concerned as I thought all was very well with my False Tom.

Lastly, I don't know how much this could have caused an issue, but in my house we suffer some damp problems (as in the fungal variety from moisture being trapped) and in a bid to combat this we use some bleach based mould killers. Now when we have cleaned the small patches in the reptile room in our home, we have sprayed a small amount on a cloth and rubbed it in, NOT sprayed it in the room. There is a faint but noticable scent of chlorine/bleach in the air for a little while after this. Would the Tomato Frog have been so sensetive that this could have caused a reaction, yet not in the Whites Tree Frog?

I'll admit I'm slightly hessitant to mention that last piece as I don't want it to possibly detract from another possible cause of death. I don't wish for anything to happen to my whites, so I'm hoping to learn from this.

Sorry for the wall of information Royce, and anyone else kind enough to read, but I hope that's some good info to start the investigation on
No problem Wes! Anything I can do to help!

1. Heat: Now that you mention that, I have too read somewhere that juvenile Tomato frogs are supposed to be kept at cooler temperatures than adults, but I would still have went with the mid to high 70s and a small 4 watt tank side heat pad to give it that option of mid 70s temps on one side and low 70s temps on the other. What size of tank was it kept in?

2. Humidity: 3 mistings a day, MAY have been enough to keep it's himidity at an adequate level, depending on the type of lid you had, if it was glass with small vents, yes, if it was a screen lid, no. I have my Malatsian Painted frogs (close relative of the Tomato frog, same Genus) in an 18 gallon planted vivarium with a glass lid and a small vent roughlt 1" wide and 10" long, and I have to mist 6 times a day to keep their humidity at 80%, so with a screen lid, it's most likely be double that (assuming you were using a screen lid).

3. Diet: His diet sound fine, nothing to cause concern. How frequently did you feed him though?

4. Substrate: BINGO! Was he fed in his in his vivarium?
Do you mean sphagnum moss like this:


If he were to ingest a piece of this, at such a small size, this could CERTAINLY have killed him. Moss will get stuck in the digestive track of the amphibian, especially such a small frog.

5. Your heating method sounds fine, but gauges arn't always that accurate, I use a 120$ Snap-On Digital laser temperature guage, and there's a big difference in readings, for an example, the temperature read 77F in my toads tank, I checked it with the digital laser guage, and it read 72.

6. As for bleach and fungi, this could have also caused a problem, not sure how fungi could have gotten in the tank, but I know amphibians are quite susceptible to bacterial and fungi spore bore infections.

As long as the bleach wasn't sprayed directly into the air, it should be fine. I cannot see the smell affecting it, unless it was very pungent?

Haha, why'd you apoligize? I asked for the information to try an help you out!

~Royce