Bufo Alvarius Hello

[SethD]

Hello everyone,

I am an amateur herp trying to learn all I can about amphibians and reptiles... Help me learn Thanks!!

ello fellow repti/anphi lovers,

I am looking for advice... I recently(5/25/2010) bought a Bufo Alvarius juvenile(about 4 inches) online, today i woke up to him having passed away, floating in his water bowl... He lived in a 30 gallon terrarium with a repti-bark substrate, a water bowl, a heating pad, and a ceramic heat emitter(60w). I fed him only gut loaded, vitamin dusted crickets. Although I never actually saw him eat, I know crickets where disappearing. I am trying to figure out what went wrong, or what I might have done to hurt his chances of survival.. I am procuring another one, and have read all the care sheets over and over, please if you have any information you think will help please don't hesitate to let me know! Thank you all

Keshava

kesh42@gmail.com

JB you will be VERY missed...

It is strange you never saw him eat, that sounds like a red flag right there. 95% of healthy unstressed toads will eat immediately if you put appropriate sized food in front of them. I really doubt he drowned. More likely he sought out the water because something was the matter with him and eventually died there. For example toads with chytrid will often spend a great deal of time in the water. Honestly though with no more information than we have here no one will be able to venture more than a guess as to exactly what happened.

[kesh42]

Thank you so much for your response! I know the info I have given isn't much, and I don't have much more to give. Never seeing him eat always worried me, and as time went on I noticed he spent more and more time in the water.. Which I though may have been him getting used to his new home, but now think maybe he was unhealthy. On a related note I did notice stool in his water, which led me to believe he was eating.. but that's no 100%.

I really appreciate your input!

Thanks again

[zekrison]

How could one treat a possible chytrid infection ? From what i've heard regarding this fungal organism is nearly always fatal once contracted at least for the wild specimens. I haven't done much thorough reading on the subject , just a brush over in an biology class. Sounds like that sort of infection is quite slow/painful for the host.

[daybr4ke]

Hi! I did some looking and found a thread on dendroboard with some relevant info. The following was posted on dendroboard from another site.

Can chytridiomycosis be treated?
In captive amphibians, chytridiomycosis can be successfully treated with antifungal medications and by disinfection of contaminated enclosures (Pessier and Mendelson, 2010). A variety of different antifungal medications have been described for the treatment of chytridiomycosis, however, one of the most common methods was developed at the Smithsonian National Zoo and uses a series of baths in the drug itraconazole (Nichols and Lamirande, 2000). Itraconazole baths have been used successfully in rescue operations that capture wild amphibians from populations that are experiencing deaths to chytridiomycosis (Gagliardo et al., 2008). Other potential treatment methods include the use of elevated body temperature and paradoxically, the antibiotic chloramphenicol. Treatment is not always 100% successful and not all amphibians tolerate treatment very well, therefore chytridiomycosis should always be treated with the advice of a veterinarian.]

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/gen.../113873?page=2

Just a piece of advice, in the future you might want to make a new thread rather than bump an old one. It usually gets better and more responses.