Diane - I'm glad to hear about your toads improving. It is possible to reverse cloudy eye (if it is a cholesterol deposit) if you catch it early.

Having unhealthy crickets could be a problem -dirty container means they usually it just die faster in the cricket keeper. It's more a problem if the crickets are nutritionally deficient. We added a vitamin and calcium powder, but that hasn't helped us at all.

Sometimes cloudy eye is bacterial in nature, which is why I think my toad's eye cleared up somewhat too and that is probaby why yours cleared up as well. Keeping the tank really clean is important. I've had all the water tested, I am pretty sure my problem is not water or dirty tank. I am getting a bigger tank next month (35 gallon) so that each toad presumably has 7 gallons of personal space. I will be adding a second charcoal/ammo chip filter to this tank to increase water circulation and cleaning. Already, we do partial water changes every few days anyway and a full scrub down weekly.

We are still doing the flagyl, and it is hard to tell if he is improving. He is still spinning, but not as much, which is supposed to be a sign of improvement. It is hard to gauge - if he spins 10 times a day, then only spinning 5 times is an improvement. But who watches a toad all day long? The treatments continue for the rest of the week. Then it's off to the vet next week for more help. My local vet tells me that every vet is trained in exotics, just many hate treating them because unless you see a lot of them, most of the time you dont' feel competent to treat, and a lot of things don't help - the animal dies, and the vet gets a black eye for it. THis one specialist we see is only one of two in my region (the other one also works at the zoo). I can see your dilemma - too bad you don't have a doctor friend who could prescribe stuff for you. I have known several doctors who would write prescriptions for medication for their own dogs and cats, it's all the same stuff people use, you just have to do some research on dosage.

At least, my toad is seeing well enough that his aim is god again, and he seems a lot happier these days, back to climbing and escaping. I am more interested in finding the cause of this because we have 4 more toads, and if this is parasitical, they all have it and are just not showing symptoms yet. I think I will buy that microscope and look at the poop samples on my own - it has been years since I used one, but you don't really forget how to do that stuff! Here is a good learning opportunity for my daughter - to learn how to prep slides and view microorganisms through a microscope.

K