Help My Fire Belly Toads are dying

[PAFishMan]

For Christmas I got my daughter 4 Fire Belly Toads. I have a tank set up with a gravel and swimming area and a mister. I put a heating pad for reptiles on the bottom of the tank under the gravel. There is a under gravel filter in there as well. Looks like a set up that would be perfect for frogs. I checked the temp and it's 72. At first the frogs were happy. We feed them once a day and they were eating crickets every time we put some in. They were singing a couple of times a day that we noticed. Sometimes they would sing when someone went near the tank. I used distilled water to put in the pond area. About 4 days ago we noticed one in the water with it's legs stretched out. It did looked fat. I was sure it was dead and got it out of there. Then last night I noticed another one dead the same way. We noticed just under a week ago they stopped signing and just before the first one died they stopped eating. I just tried to feed the two we have left and the crickets just walk over them and they don't go after them at all like they use to. So now they won't eat. These two that are left look skinny. Does anyone know what's going on? Should I check the water like I do the fish tank? What values am I looking for? It's distilled water so I don't think it went bad that quick with a filter in there. It's only been up 3 weeks. Are crickets going behind the wall and dying therefore making the water bad? I did try to feed them meal worms from the pet store but they didn't eat them. A day later we did smell something rotten from the tank, I thought the water was bad but it was the dead meal worms in the dish so I got them out of there and the smell went away. Hope I can get some help before I loose the lat two. Oh, at night I do set the temp in the house to 68 but I don't think the water in their pond gets that low. Thanks
PS: See photos, the frog on the lily pad is not real it's a fake one that lights up different colors that hasn't worked since the batteries died. The two that are alive are in each back corner of the tank. Thanks

[MatthewM1]

How fat are the dead that were talking about? My first thought would be they had swallowed gravel and died of a bowel impaction. It's fine to use underwater but your going to want to cover it with eco earth or something similar on the land portion. I've never had luck getting that type of setup to work the way I like. My favorite so far it to find a plastic tub that takes up most of the tank than pack eco earth all around it and fill the tub with water, filter, etc. Also don't use distilled water, use tap water treated with dechlorinating drops, like sold for fish tanks. Distilled water can leach minerals out of them causing imbalances in their bodily systems. It's okay for misting but not for soaking/hydrating substrate.

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[PAFishMan]

They were plump a little bloated not huge. I don't think they are eating gravel. They had access to plenty of food. The two that are left are skinny not fat at all and they are not eating. I am going to test the water from a fresh water fish tester and I will post the results below. Thanks

[PAFishMan]

Ok, I did some tests and maybe I found some answers but I don't know about frogs so please anyone that can help me let me know. I tested the temp outside the water on the gravel it reads 68. The temp of the water reads 74. Does this cause a problem? I tested the water with my fresh water tester for fresh water fish and it reads, Low PH is 6.4 ( for fish normal would be 7.6) High PH reads higher than the scale (for fish normal is 7.4). Now Ammonia levels read 8.0ppm (this would be deadly for fresh water fish as you would want 0 ppm for fish). Nitrite reads .25ppm not to bad (for fish you want 0), and Nitrate levels read 160 ppm (this would be deadly for fish for fish you want 0 ) I don't know about these fire belly frogs. In this case my concern if they were fresh water fish I would be concerned with the Ammonia and Nitrate levels. Let me know. Thanks

[SqUaReJeLLy]

I am far from an expert, I have only had mine for a few months now but I would have to say that those numbers can't be good. Whether they could kill a frog or not I don't know but I would still do a full water change and use treated tap water to replace. I use Prime since I also use that for my fish. As far as them eating the gravel it's not because they are hungry and eat it, it's when they go after their food they can accidentally grab a piece of gravel instead which it why it's better if you are going to use gravel to keep it under the water or cover it with something if it's above the water. If you believe the crickets may be going behind the wall then definitely check that out to make sure since any dead in the water isn't good and if they are going back there you may have to take the wall out or close off any spaces that allows them back there. Also there doesn't seem to be any places for them to hide which I'm sure could be stressing them out some.

Even if everything you set up for them is perfect from what I have read most FBT are wild caught which means they are more likely to have parasites and other nasties and the only way to check that out would be to bring them to a vet and they will give you the correct meds to fix them all up. I hope some of what I said was helpful and someone more experienced will come along and help you out. In the mean time if you haven't already check this care sheet out, Frog Forum - Fire-Bellied Toad Care and Breeding - Bombina orientalis and relatives

[PAFishMan]

Ok, I just did a water change and before I was told I took that wall out in the back lol. I may put it back if I can get things stabilized first. Here is the thing, I took out all the water ran the gravel through a strainer not a whole lot but I thought enough. The pet store told me to use tap water with a reversal osmosis. I did that we have well water with a reversal osmosis. We are in a farming community so I replaced half with distilled water and the other half with tap. I took some pictures of what it looks like now. See the pictures below. I did test the water after setting everything back up and I was shocked. The Ph is 7.2 it was 6.4, the High Ph is 7.4 it was off the chart before so now that is normal. The Ammonia is 1.0 ppm it was 8.0 so that is a lot better, The nitrite is 2.0 ppm it was 0.25 like I said we are in a farming community and to my surprise the Nitrate is exactly the same 160 ppm?? What happened? Did that much get put back in from the gravel. I cleaned the little filter in the pump even. There was some dead crickets behind the wall but I cleaned that out and washed out the tank in a sink. I ran water into the tank and dumped it a few times until the water was clear and dumped that out to. I had all the gravel in a five gallon bucket and put some into a strainer and washed it a little then dumped it into the tank and kept doing that until I had the gravel back. I guess I will check it again in a couple of days, that is if I still have these two frogs. I am going to put some Prime in now as well. If anyone can let me know here how I can get this cleared up faster let me know. Thanks

[DigitalPunk]

PAFishMan,

The issue with the gravel is your Frogs accidentally swallowing some gravel when they are going after food. Here is what you really should do.

You can leave the rock (but could also replace the rock with Leca), Cover the rock with a barrier (I use weed blocker), Cover the ween block with soil (I use ABG Mix), Cover the soil with some Sphagnum Moss, Cover the moss with Leaf Litter.

I would highly highly recommend the ABG mix. It is cheap and extremely good for terrarium substrate. Buy some Springtails and put them in the ABG mix then add the other 2 layers. For a pong/soaking area do a bowl or plastic container and add all the above layers around it.

Move the heating pad to the side of the tank and not on the bottom. Anything you heat from the bottom will have the heat insulated by the materials used on the bottom of the tank.

The Rock/Leca (Drainage layer) should be 1.5 to 2 inches thick. ABG mix should be 2 - 3 inches thick. Moss about an inch. Leaf Liter should cover all the moss.

The Leaf litter will help keep the frogs from accidentally swallowing Moss and also provide with with some cover if they get spooked.



Once you have a good Substrate layer setup then you can start looking at accents for the tank. Thinks for the frogs to live in or hid behind.

All the above items mentioned for the substrate can be bought at Josh's Frogs - Largest online herps feeders and reptile supplies store

[SqUaReJeLLy]

PAFishMan, if you can could you test your water before you put it in the tank? Maybe your nitrates are just that high right from the beginning and I don't know what can really be done about it since I have never experienced nitrates that high. I know live plants will remove some and it might be a good idea to have some in your water but 160 is really high. Maybe the test you are using is old and giving a false reading?

Paul, can I ask why you are suggesting a mainly land setup for a mostly aquatic frog? Is it because of his water parameters or do you just like that set up better? I have seen some setups like that and I never understood it. Like I said I am far from an expert but from what I have seen these types of frogs really enjoy their water and spend most of their time in it and at least with mine they usually only come completely out of the water to hunt.

[Flying Dutchman]

Almost nothing wrong with the setup, but the only thing that I would suggest is you put in more hiding places for the fire bellies. They tollerate each other, but they need a place to hide. Also the water and the tank don't need additional heathing.

Are the batteries out of the lily pad? They could have leaked in the water. Did you change 1/3 of the water every week?

[PAFishMan]

Ok, That's a good idea to put the heating pad along the side. I will try to unstick it and place it there. I don't know if it will come off. I tested my tap reversal osmosis water just now and it reads 0 ppm, so I decided to check the distilled water to see what the Nitrate levels are there and it reads 0 ppm as well. I did put some Prime in according to directions but took some water out to test to see what it reads before putting in the Prime. The tank water still is reading Nitrate 160 ppm. I will let the Prime work and test it tomorrow again. The kind of gravel I have in there is half of round rock type gravel and the other half Lava rock gravel. The guy at the pet store said to use the lava rock because it will help the filter clean the water where the regular rock will just sit there and get stuff on it but not help with the cleaning of the water. Is the Lava rock causing the high Nitrate levels? I am a little puzzled as to what is causing the high Nitrate levels. I emptied the entire tank when I did the water change. I dumped the gravel into a five gallon bucket and then dumped a full strainer full into a spegetti strainer and lightly washed all around it until I thought I got enough cleaned. I did that with the entire bucket until I cleaned all the gravel. I also cleaned the filter out of the pump as well. So, there must be that much Nitrate inside the gravel or that lava gravel has a ton of it inside of it or something. I am puzzled with that. This morning the two frogs I have left ate one cricket each. That felt good to see them eat something. I haven't seen that in almost a week.

[SqUaReJeLLy]

It's good to hear they have started to eat. How have they been the past few days? Hopefully they were just stressed and have settled in and are eating more now. Have you added any more hiding places to help even more with that?

I have no experience with lava rock, in my tank I use smallish (about half an inch or so) river rock. The person who owned my frogs before me kept them on gravel with it sloped up to form land and when I transferred them over to the tank I was keeping them in and cleaned their old tank it was FULL of grossness. So I just have enough to cover the bottom of the tank and use flat rocks on top of each other to act as steps then the area above the water. So far that seems to be working to stop their poo from hiding and building up.