Sick Whites Dumpy Tree Frog, any hope?

[smashley]

We've had our whites dumpy tree frog for about 9 months, he did really well for about 6 months... alert and jumpy, soaked in water at night, aggressive eater, and he grew quite quickly at first. Over the last several months he has not been behaving normally and I am worried he is very sick now.
Here are his symptoms: he has completely stopped growing even though he is still quite small; he doesn't eat much at all, this has gradually gotten worse, now we give him 10 medium crickets from the petstore and it takes him about a week to eat them all, and a few of the crickets have died by then so he doesn't really eat all the crickets we give him; he is always on the ground now and he doesn't really jump, just sort of walks but lately he has been staying in one place for a few days at a time; he barely reacts if we reach in his tank and touch or nudge him but he does walk around until you leave him alone; he also never goes in his water pool anymore, it is quite humid he doesn't look dehydrated, but he used to take a swim nearly every night. He usually goes after a cricket or two right when we feed him, but tonight he really showed no interest even with crickets resting on him. He is bright green still, even when he acted normal he rarely changed color. Aside from being small and maybe a little skinny he looks fine, no injuries or anything. There have never been any major changed to his habitat, we just moved from Colorado to Oregon but he seemed to be getting sick before we moved.

Any ideas what is wrong with him or what I can do to help him?

[BlueKiwiOca]

Could you please answer these http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/...enclosure.html questions so we can help you out? thanks!

[smashley]

I dont think there are any problems in his enclosure, but I'm not an experienced frog owner so I'll describe it. It has a coconut/bark bottom with rock and a log leaned up the side, he has a water dish, but no running water (the last frog my boyfriend kept had running water in a waterfall with a pump and filter not sure if that makes a differance). We spray him with room temp tap water at least once a day, usually more. It stays very humid in his enclosure, although we wonder if it was too dry in colorado. He has live plants in his enclosure, orchids a couple of ferns and two other common tropical plants. He has a uv compact lamp above his tank and a small heater stuck to the back of it.

Last night he didn't move at all, even with fresh crickets in his enclosure. My boyfriend picked him up this morning he was fairly squirmy so I guess he still has some energy.

[smashley]

Opps just realized you sent a link with more questions, here are more answers:

He lives in a 10 gal glass aquarium w screen top
Just one white's dumpy tree frog in the enclosure, no other animals
Don't have sensors for humidity and temp, but stays visibly humid and the house stays above 65 degrees and he has a little heater stuck to the back of his tank
We use tap water for his water dish and to spray him, I mentioned before we just moved but I he was sick before the move
Substrate is coconut core, as suggested by petstore associate, we found that the fibers would get caught in his mouth so we added a layer of small bark. Natural set up, live plants were quarantined and watered a few times to be sure there wasnt any fertilizer on them, natural rock and wood sat out in the house for a while and were washed before they were added to his home.
We feed him 10 medium crickets from the pet store about every week although it has been less often lately bc it takes him about a week to eat what
We havent found poop in quite a while (over a month) but in his natural enclosure we might not see it?
We don't handle him much and he is in a low traffic area in the living room, just my boyfriend and me in the house

[kueluck]

Amphibian Care >> White's Tree Frog (Litoria caerulea) Care MY guess is the tap water or he's ingested a piece of bark. Change your water to clean rain water or treat it w/conditioner safe for amphibians.

[Mentat]

Hello and welcome to FF! Your White's is suffering from TOS "Toxic Out Syndrome" because of chloramines in tap water. Frog stopped going to water dish because it's poisoning it. You need to get a dechlorinator like Seachem's Prime or ExoTerra Aquatize and use it to treat his water now. Once you treat water fill dish to frogs chin and place it there so it can detox. Also, change water daily even if clean.

The enclosure you have does not work well for tree frogs where a vertical disposition with more height than floor space is preferred. Also, White's are large frogs and the minimum height recommended is 24 inches. IRT temperature Whites need 85F daytime with around a 10F drop at night. Ventilation is more important that humidity and they can handle 65-70%. Need to get gauges in there so you can monitor properly and a dual digital model is the way to go.

Crickets should not be thrown into enclosure until all are eaten. They need to be fed or "gut loaded" with carrots, oats, lettuce, and veggie fish flakes for 24-48 hours and then fed to frog. All uneaten crickets should be removed from cage early the next day as they will loose their nutritious value and even could pester and bite frog causing more stress or even an infection. Crickets should be sized same as distance between frogs eyes and dusted with CA/D3 2X and vitamins 1X weekly on different days with skip day in between.

That substrate should be replaced with damp shredded coco mixed with dechlorinated water, damp unprinted paper towels or even damp clean rags. If your frog accidentally ingests a piece of bark while catching a cricket, it could get impacted and get sick or die. Also, the substrate was sprayed with chloramines in tap so it has to go now as part of frog's detox.

Take care of water and food issues now and then start planing on new enclosure soon. Hope we are on time to turn health issues around and good luck !

[smashley]

Thanks for the advice, I had no idea the tap water would be harmful. Will fix that immediately. We also have a larger tank but have been waiting for him to get better to set it up, but I will do that today. I'm off to the pet store for water conditioner and food supplements. I'll update if things get better or worse.

Thanks again

[smashley]

Frog seems to be doing a little better. Hes been in a temporary enclosure with clean coco and water for a couple of days. Now he is much more active!
We gave him a few crickets yesterday and he immediately went after them! We were so relieved to see that! However, he hasn't been able to catch anything. We took the crickets out after a few hours and we are trying again today (so far its been the same thing, hunting but no kill). It sort of looks like he is jumping for the crickets but not opening his mouth. Should I be concerned about this? Or just give him more time? I'm worried that he was being poisoned for so long that now he might be blind or brain damaged or something. Anyone ever heard of a frog that can't/won't open its mouth?

He is definitely improving so hopefully he will continue to do so