RETF 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.

[flybyferns]

Good Morning,
I mentioned this on Thursday. If you email him he will get back to you!
http://www.frogforum.net/general-dis...-prepared.html
Lynn

[wkcheng2]

I have also encountered this problem before. 1) The frog slept on the ground. 2) Gradually lost in weight. 3) no appetite. 4) Cannot climb on the glass tank(at later stage).

Things to do to save the frog:
1) Use a plastic tank to separate the frog.

2) Owing to the frog refuse to eat for a longtime. You should add some Multi-vitamin (For caged birds) and electrolyte liquid into the water to maintain his life.


3) The depth of water should be very shallow (1-1.5cm), because at later stage if he cannot climb on vertical surface, he may down into the water.


4) Assisted feed for several days. Using a plastic spoon carefully open his mouth and put a small size cricket dusted with cal + vit powder into his mouth.



5) After several days if his condition is better, keep using Multi-vitamin and electrolyte liquid, but stop assisted feed. Put some small crickets in a small container and monitor his appetite.

6) If he starts eating crickets for several days, you may put it back to the large tank.

P.S. 77 during the day and 69 at night is ok. My 20 Red-Eyed Leaf Frog are keeping 83 in summer and 62 in winter for more than 5 year. I have breed it for 3th generations, everything is fine. But make sure changed water daily and don’t use distill water!

[wkcheng2]

RETF has slippery skin. It easily escapes during the assisted feed. In order to prevent this happen, you can use some toilet papers to roll the body of the RETF (not the head), then you can easily and gently to hold the RETF and open his mouth. After finished, remove the paper and use some water to spay it to clean the debris.

[Cocinecro]

Thanks for the info guys! I took wkcheng's advice and filled the floor of the hospital tank with a pedialyte soak. He started sleeping on the side of the tank again. This morning it appeared that there was one less cricket (he either ate it or I just couldn't find it). He also keeps his eyes open more during the night while he's moving around the hospital tank, so it's looking like a good sign. Still no sign of droppings, keeping my fingers crossed. I'll start assisted eating tomorrow if I don't find any. Thanks for the tip on force feeding. It's not an easy thing to do with a struggling frog that does not want to be in your hand.

Also I started a build on a new terrarium to house my red eyes in. The hexagonal aquarium I have them in is not optimal for cleaning and maintenance since I have to go in through the top of the enclosure. I'll start a thread in the terrarium section when I get some more time. Hopefully this will help keep the frogs healthier.