I’m new to the forum and not great with computers, so please bear with me. I have a sick African clawed frog named Simon (I ‘m pretty sure she’s a girl, but she came with a name so I didn’t change it). She’s 5 years old and lives in a 55 gallon tank with several minnows (ones she didn’t eat when they were smaller). I’ve got a large Aquaclear power filter and a homemade canister filter as well on the tank. I also change about 50% of the water every week and a half and use Koizyme. I’ve never had a problem with water quality—no ammonia, nitrates, or nitrites and the pH runs around 7.5. Her tank mate (an albino African clawed frog-Simon is sort of green and black) died about 2 months ago-she was 10 ½ years old). Simon seemed fine after the death of her friend for a few weeks. Then she began to eat less and less (very unlike her-she’s always had a healthy appetite-maybe even a little on the pudgy side). She would usually eat 4-5 reptomin sticks twice/day and went down to about half that and then nothing for about a week(if I didn’t hand feed her, I wouldn’t even have known anything was wrong). I began to get concerned so I decided to try some antibiotics. I started with Maracyn 2 and Maroxy. I also started to salt her tank with aquarium salt—1 tablespoon / 5 gallons water. After a few weeks of an occasional piece of food (I was trying all sorts of treats and her Reptomin at this point-earthworms, baby fish, and flies) and no response to the Maracyn 2 or Maroxy (and many water changes to get all the meds out), I decided to try soaking her in chloramphenicol for an hour each evening(I found info on the internet -20mg/L and we use this antibiotic for fish where I work). She ate 4 pieces of food 20 days ago and ate 1 fly 12 days ago.
Even though she’s always been a big frog, she seemed maybe a little bigger-even though she had barely been eating for a while. After reading about bloat I also decided to try Epsom salts. The day after I started the chloramphenicol, I started soaking her in epsom salts for an hour each morning (1/2 tsp per gallon). After 5 days of the Epsom, I read on your site to use 1 tsp per gallon, so I increased to that. Today is day 13 of the chloramphenicol and day 9 of the ½ tsp Epsom salt. There is still no difference—I don’t even know how she is still alive and fairly active. Do you have any suggestions as to what her problem may be or what I can do for her? I love these frogs-I’ve had many of them over the past 35 years or so (since I was a kid) and I’d hate to lose her. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. I love reading about other people’s frogs on your website.