RETF help

[Cocinecro]

I have 3 red eyes. I had 4 but one of my males died a little over a month ago. My second male is looking and acting strange, which is in itself strange since my 2 females are doing awesome. When the last male died, he started acting lethargic, sleeping too much, not eating, and sleeping close to the ground. Now the second male is doing the same thing. He seems to do nothing but sleep now, I haven't seen him active in a wile now. Even when he's awake, his eyes are closed. He'll open them to go to his water bowl, then close his eyes while he's in there, then open them to climb out and find a leaf to go back to sleep on. I haven't seen him eat in a while now.

I decided to try and give him a pedialyte soak daily now, and I'm on day 2. I soak him in a 10/1 ratio pedialyte to water for about 20 minutes a day. I seems to help at first, but then he's back to sleeping. He's also currently in a separate critter keeper with just paper towels, a piece of pothos, water dish, and a lot of crickets so I can monitor him.

I know you're going to want details on their enclosure in order to help:
I keep them in a 30gal Hexagonal aquarium, with a screen lid, fluorescent light and a infrared heat bulb. Daytime temps usually around 79-82F, nighttime temps of 72-75F. Humidity around 60-80%. I monitor their temps and humidity with an electronic thermometer/hydrometer. I use a automatic mister with distilled water for misting, and I use spring water in their water dish. I change out the water daily (sometimes every other day if I forget, but never go over 2 days), and always wash out their bowl before refilling. Tank has a piece of grapevine wood, artificial vine, and live pothos for climbing. Substrate is sphagnum moss over cocofiber with a little potting soil for the pothos, substrate barrier, then hydroton. I added hydroton and a substrate barrier after the last male died to eliminate the possibility of stagnant water/mold/mildew problems and help with humidity.

The strange thing is the females. They are doing awesome. I'm serious. They're fat, happy, active, and great eaters. They always wake up for a few hours every night to feed, take a dip and explore. No problems whatsoever. I don't know what I'm doing wrong that is making the males die. All of my frogs are CB's and I purchased them as babies in October.

I've enclosed some pics to help with a diagnosis..

The specimen in question, awake.

The specimen in question, asleep (what he's doing most often)

One of my females, fat happy, healthy, and active.

My terrarium.

I don't get it. The females are doing so well and my male specimens are not. Are the females a little more hardy because of their size? I don't think it's the enclosure that's the problem since the females are healthy. I'm at a loss, any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[flybyferns]

Hi,
I am affraid I only have a few minutes this AM. I will try to get things started for you.

Please read ---post #16 --cut and paste all the questions back into your thread here;
answer all the questions as best as possibe:
http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/...enclosure.html

The move to the hospital tank was the right thing to do!
The pedi soak ratio ---- for clarification is ---- 1:10 1 part pedi 10 parts distilled water

Other FF members will help during the day today! But the questions are important !
DON"T handle them !!!!!! only when absolutely necessary! too stressful-makes things worse!

Also see this !!!!!!(great news!)
http://www.frogforum.net/general-dis...-prepared.html

Lynn

[Cocinecro]

1-size of enclosure
30 gal hexagonal, not sure the exact dimensions, i can break out the tape measure later if necessary. Approximately 24" high, and 16" across.
2-# on inhabitants - specifically ( if there is another frog ---size differences ?)
3 inhabitants. 2 female, one male.
3-humidity
usually 60-80%.
4-temp
78-82F Daytime, 73-75 night time.
5-water - type - for both misting and soaking dish
Distilled for misting, bottled spring water for soaking.
6-materials used for substrate
Sphagnum moss, potting soil (only in the corner with the live plant, and is completely covered by the moss) coco-fiber, and hydroton with substrate barrier.
7-enclosure set up i.e. plants( live or artificial) wood, bark etc -how were things prepared prior to being put into the viv
Oakvine wood, exoterra artificial vine, live pothos vine (no pesticides, been in enclosure since October of last year).
8-main food source
Crickets, small-medium sized, always dusted with Reptical.
9-vitamins and calcium ? ( how often )
Every time. I don't use a cricket bowl, so the remaining crickets are eaten in the next few days.
10-lighting
Fluorescent lighting, 12hrs a day, with an adjustable infrared bulb for heat, turned down for night time temps.
11-what is, specifically, being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure
Infrared bulb on an adjustable "clamp" style dome light, left on the screen lid of enclosure.
12-when is the last time he ate
Definitely last week.
13-have you found poop lately
Not since he's been moved to the hospital tank.
14-a pic would be great ( including the frog ) any little cell phone pic is fine
see original post.
15- how old is the frog
bought as a froglet in October so, roughly almost a year.
16-how long have you owned him
Since October
17- is the frog wild caught or captive bred
Captive bred
18- frog food- how often and if its diverse what other feeders are used as treats
tried mealworms before, they seemed to ignore them. Might try again. I raise Dubia roaches as well for my tarantulas, I might offer those as well in nymph form.
19- about how often the frog is handled
Never, unless necessary (moving to a holding tank while I spot clean the enclosure's glass, tank maintenance).
20-is the enclosure is kept in a high or low traffic area
I'd say medium. It's kept in the dining room adjacent to the living room. Only 3 people in my household, not too much traffic.

I used spring water in the pedi soak, will switch to distilled.

The pic I took of me handling him was on his way back to hospital tank from his soak. I handle my frogs as little as possible.

Thanks so much for the info on the medications. I'll probably be placing an order for metronidiziole as it seems to be exactly what he's needing. He does not have any lesions and I do not think that it is worms as the other frogs in the tank have no problems. It may be a bacterial problem. I did not have the hydroton in the aquarium until recently, and was having trouble with water collecting at the bottom of the tank.

Thanks again for the help!

[Cocinecro]

Day 3 of soaks and being in the frog hospital. Today he stopped sleeping horizontally on the leaves and moved into a corner of the hospital tank. His coloration is looking much better now. Switched from using spring water to distilled water in his pedialyte soak. Still no droppings, and I'm not moving him back to his enclosure until I see him eat. Keeping my fingers crossed.



Here's an updated pic.

[flybyferns]

Hi,
The frog is looking better in post #$4. Great!
Make that call , to get more help.
Keep and eye out for poop !

note: Sphagnum moss ! it is known to cause impaction, so you want to more information on that moving forward.
Most people used the tropical soil on the entire bottom.
Lynn

[Cocinecro]

Day 4 of pedialyte soaks, have lots of small-medium sized crickets and a bowl of small meal worms in his cage. His color has improved, he's active at night, but still no eating. No fecal matter has been discovered, and I just caught him sleeping at the bottom of the hospital tank.
He seemed to be getting better, only to relapse into the same behavior. Not sure what is wrong. Females in the terrarium are doing great. Good appetites and active.

I don't know what is going wrong. I try to do everything that I can to keep them happy, yet the males keep dying. I hate that I can't figure out what I am doing wrong that they are dying.
I can only think of two possibilities: 1. I had water collecting at the bottom of the tank before putting in the clay substrate, may have caused stagnant water to cause bacteria build up. This is doubtful though, it never got too bad, and I cleaned their terrarium regularly and tank never got a bad smell. Also, the female specimens I have are doing great.
2. We had a cold front come in the past two weeks where I live, so their cage temperature dropped 5 degrees night and day as we were not running the heat in our house. Temps fell to 77 during the day and 69 at night for approximately 5 days. Maybe the smaller male specimens are more sensitive to temperature drops. I really don't see a 5 degree Fahrenheit temperature difference causing the death or illness though.
Otherwise, I'm doing a big terrarium build in the next couple of weeks. Complete with a very large Exoterra tank, driftwood, great stuff background, live plants, the works. I was planning on ordering more Red Eyes to go into the new terrarium, but if I can't figure out what is causing the males to die, I might have to put my White tree frogs in the new terrarium instead of more Red Eyes if I can't figure out what is going wrong.
I really hate to do that though. I have always wanted to keep red eyed tree frogs as pets. Now that I have them, I hate that I'm doing something wrong that keeps killing them. I have done everything to the exact specifications on every care sheet I have read on these frogs, yet the males keep dying, while the females flourish.
Any help would still be greatly appreciated.

[Heatheranne]

Here is a picture of how I hold Twiggy when he needs force feeding. The paper towel is soaked in slightly warm dechlorinated water. You can also soak it in the diluted pedialyte solution. He does not try to squirm.

Good luck!

[Cocinecro]

Thanks for all the advice guys! So glad I joined this forum. I should have done it a long time ago. I've been learning so much the past week.

Lynn, the spoon does not have sharp edges and I find it's better than something metal like tweezers to get their mouths open. The metronidazole should be on it's way.
As for the misting, I use an automatic mister that I have tweaked to keep their enclosure at a pretty steady 70-80%. I use a hand mister to spot spray at night when needed.
I'm also thinking about switching to ceramics, but I really don't think the red light bothers them. They have been using theirs since October and have had no problems. I might try a blue light instead. I am also building their new enclosure at the moment, and I need some advice on how to heat their new and much larger enclosure. I started a thread in the terrarium and vivarium section that has pics of the new home being built. It should be done by this weekend hopefully if the other supplies I've ordered come in by then.

Going out now to find some worms to grind up with the crickets, I'll be sure to take the heads off. Also going to try and find a syringe.. I'm guessing I should look in a pharmacy for that?

[Cocinecro]

Success! Got a thin syringe from a pharmacy (free of charge surprisingly), and made a mix of crickets, mealworms, and a dash of reptical. He finally swallowed the food instead of spitting it out. This marks the first thing he's ate in a week.
Thanks again to everyone for all the help!

[Heatheranne]

Yay!!!