Help(!) with Grey Tree Frogs

[irThumper]

When you say water conditioner are you referring to a chlorine remover or to an r.o. unit?

A liquid water prep like SeaChem Prime, or similar, to remove Chlorine & Chloramines, etc. I personally use natural spring water in BPA free bottles & have a Britta water filter pitcher and Zoo Med Reptisafe terrarium water conditioner to be on the safe side. Definitely want to use the conditioner, especially after a major tank clean/sanitization using 10% bleach solution.

I personally I wouldn't want to risk more frogs by proving it, but you could try keeping some with treated water and some the way you've been doing and see what the results are. Me, I'd just treat the water anyway and see if you stop losing frogs all together. Hope this helps!

[LilyPad]

Can you post some pictures of the enclosures? You do not need water in the base of the tank, just a water dish would be sufficient. Was the water filtered? Were you changing it at all? How were you feeding them when the tank bottom was filled with water? Whatever water you use with your animals needs to be treated. Chloramines will not gas off. Do you have some pictures of your set ups? Were you using any supplements? Was the topsoil free of fertilizers and pesticides? Sphagnum can cause impaction with frogs that eat as aggressively as grays. Mixing subadults and adults can be okay (more likely they were males and females, can be quite a size difference) so long as none are less than half the size of the biggest. They like ventilation but not necessarily "dry" air. Were they burying themselves at any point? Food should be no longer than the space between their eyes. Can you be certain the worms and insects that you dug up were pesticide and fertilizer free?

Did you disinfect the tank and decorations at all after the first ones died? If you did, how did you do it? Gray tree frogs sold in the US are pretty much always wild caught and could have introduced some pathogen into the tanks.

Obviously, there are some big issues going on somewhere for them to die so quickly, I wouldn't get anymore until we can figure it out.

[Rebel]

Can you post some pictures of the enclosures? You do not need water in the base of the tank, just a water dish would be sufficient. Was the water filtered? Were you changing it at all? How were you feeding them when the tank bottom was filled with water? Whatever water you use with your animals needs to be treated. Chloramines will not gas off. Do you have some pictures of your set ups? Were you using any supplements? Was the topsoil free of fertilizers and pesticides? Sphagnum can cause impaction with frogs that eat as aggressively as grays. Mixing subadults and adults can be okay (more likely they were males and females, can be quite a size difference) so long as none are less than half the size of the biggest. They like ventilation but not necessarily "dry" air. Were they burying themselves at any point? Food should be no longer than the space between their eyes. Can you be certain the worms and insects that you dug up were pesticide and fertilizer free?

Did you disinfect the tank and decorations at all after the first ones died? If you did, how did you do it? Gray tree frogs sold in the US are pretty much always wild caught and could have introduced some pathogen into the tanks.

Obviously, there are some big issues going on somewhere for them to die so quickly, I wouldn't get anymore until we can figure it out.

Im a little new here and can't seem to get the mobile app to upload my pics. The setup is what you would call a naturalistic vivarium. Live plants are rooted in the substrate and are climbing through the tank. It had been set up and growing for some time before i added the frogs. I added about 2 inches of water the same day i added the frogs. It is not filtered, per se, but is used as a medium for plant roots which do draw out nitrates and phosphates. There is a cork bark island on which i place the crickets and other insect are added in a tupperware dish, so I'm not sure if or how frogs would be ingesting the peat from below the water level. As far as pesticides go, all i can say is that i dig from my own backyard compost, made of rabbit droppings, kitchen scraps, leaves of my own trees, and home depot "locally composted" topsoil. Crickets are the primary food and they are pet store bought. Insects are dusted with Exo terra multivitamin, about once per week.

No, the frogs never bury themselves. They remain at the upper corners of the tank or at the highest branches and move around only at night. When i see them sitting on the island during the day i know they are about to die.

Heres where i probably went wrong: i keep a sprayer with aged tap handy, but when it runs low i have a garden hose which i use to spray all the tanks in my basement. I spray for a couple of seconds to make up for evaporation. I typically spray in the daytime while the lights (3w led) are on. By dark all the water on the leaves and glass will have evaporated. Since i have been getting these responses i have only used water (for my final two frogs) which has sat aerated for 24 hours, but now i see i still need to add a chemical conditioner.
.
The nature of the setup does not allow for sterlization after an animal dies ...would you suggest a bare quarantine tank setup on the future

[Rebel]

Im a little new here and can't seem to get the mobile app to upload my pics. The setup is what you would call a naturalistic vivarium. Live plants are rooted in the substrate and are climbing through the tank. It had been set up and growing for some time before i added the frogs. I added about 2 inches of water the same day i added the frogs. It is not filtered, per se, but is used as a medium for plant roots which do draw out nitrates and phosphates. There is a cork bark island on which i place the crickets and other insect are added in a tupperware dish, so I'm not sure if or how frogs would be ingesting the peat from below the water level. As far as pesticides go, all i can say is that i dig from my own backyard compost, made of rabbit droppings, kitchen scraps, leaves of my own trees, and home depot "locally composted" topsoil. Crickets are the primary food and they are pet store bought. Insects are dusted with Exo terra multivitamin, about once per week.

No, the frogs never bury themselves. They remain at the upper corners of the tank or at the highest branches and move around only at night. When i see them sitting on the island during the day i know they are about to die.

Heres where i probably went wrong: i keep a sprayer with aged tap handy, but when it runs low i have a garden hose which i use to spray all the tanks in my basement. I spray for a couple of seconds to make up for evaporation. I typically spray in the daytime while the lights (3w led) are on. By dark all the water on the leaves and glass will have evaporated. Since i have been getting these responses i have only used water (for my final two frogs) which has sat aerated for 24 hours, but now i see i still need to add a chemical conditioner.
.
The nature of the setup does not allow for sterlization after an animal dies ...would you suggest a bare quarantine tank setup on the future

[Rebel]

Sorry its sideways this app is a little tricky to use

[elly]

Yeah, sorry a bare quarantine setup or at least something that could be cleaned occasionally sounds better.

[LilyPad]

OKay, yes, the water is a big issue. It needs to be treated. I use seachem prime but there are others out there.

Second, the tanks are too short/small for the amount of frogs you're putting in them. 10 gallons per frog when it comes to grey tree frogs is the standard recommendation and is very fitting to this species, in my opinion.

Third, all new frogs should be quarantined. Unfortunately, when you do a naturalistic viv, and have a frog die in it, you HAVE to take it apart and disinfect or replace everything. You can dip the plants in a 10% bleach solution, bake the cork bark etc. But you cannot just leave it or you'll perpetuate a cycle of infection. It could be fungal infections, parasites, bacteria, we do not know but obviously something is very wrong.

Fourth. They use the water like a litter box, that is where they potty. So it either needs to be changed daily, or filtered and changed weekly. I bet if you got some test strips out, you'd find some major issues with the water that live plants will not fix. It's going stagnant and becomes a breeding ground for bacteria.

I would quarantine all frogs as you get them. A bare tank, maybe a branch and some leaves to provide coverage. Damp, unprinted paper towel as substrate that is changed every 1-2 days. A bowl of treated water that is changed daily.

As for the compost, I would just get rid of it, get abg soil if you want to grow plants. I would get rid of the water bottom, they do not spend their life primarily around water, they spend it in trees. You need a tall tank. I would put the abg in with a drainage layer and just a bowl for water. Try having only 2 frogs for a while and see if you can keep them alive.

They need sturdy branches, they can be heavy frogs and if they do not feel comfortable and secure on those leaves, it could stress them out.

Right now, I would get the remaining frogs into a quarantine tank and get a fecal test done. Being wild caught and having been exposed to pathogens in the tank where other frogs have passed, that's pretty much necessary.

[Rebel]

Thanks everyone for the insights. I have begun using a water conditioner, and while I have it, I may as well treat the water for all my animals. My next step is to quarantine all of my new frogs. Rather than tear down my existing setup (it took years to grow) I am going to try and fit it for an external filter that can maintain the small sump at the at the bottom of the tank. I realize I'm not at that level with this species, but unless I'm mistaken, a dish of water may be too small for breeding purposes. Meantime, in reference to the possibility that pathogens rather than chlorine was the cause of death, I am wondering if the existing tank, if left vacant (of animals) for several months, would once again be safe to use, or if pathogens are likely to be species-specific, and the vivarium could be safely used for an unrelated species of animal. Will keep you posted on my last two greys.

[Mentat]

Myself do not think it was pathogens that caused their demise; although they probably helped give frogs the final blow after their immune systems collapsed . Home Depot Top soil has stuff on it that is not good for any frogs or amphibians. The only soil we recommend for planted frog vivariums is Atlanta Botanical Gardens or ABG type soil. You can buy pre-mix or Google the recipe and mix it yourself. The second problem was chronic chlorine exposure. Amy and others have already given you fixes for both issues. Good luck !

[LilyPad]

Thanks everyone for the insights. I have begun using a water conditioner, and while I have it, I may as well treat the water for all my animals. My next step is to quarantine all of my new frogs. Rather than tear down my existing setup (it took years to grow) I am going to try and fit it for an external filter that can maintain the small sump at the at the bottom of the tank. I realize I'm not at that level with this species, but unless I'm mistaken, a dish of water may be too small for breeding purposes. Meantime, in reference to the possibility that pathogens rather than chlorine was the cause of death, I am wondering if the existing tank, if left vacant (of animals) for several months, would once again be safe to use, or if pathogens are likely to be species-specific, and the vivarium could be safely used for an unrelated species of animal. Will keep you posted on my last two greys.

"Breeding" set ups are only temporary. There is work to get grey tree frogs to breed, they are usually only moved into a breeding set up when they show signs that they're ready to breed. Other than that, they only need a water dish. In the wild, they move away from the water other than at breeding time. Have you looked into your state laws regarding grey tree frogs? Here in WI, we have laws about how many we can own and we cannot sell them because they are a native frog. So breeding them here would be pretty much worthless.

I'm not sure how much time would have to pass in order to get it to the point of safe for another animal, you could take it apart, bleach dip things, and then put it back together.