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Lost a WTF, rethinking husbandry.
After being sick a very very long time, my WTF finally succumbed to whatever illness he had and passed away. Needless to say, I am pretty bummed out over it. I'm not really sure what more I could have done, I consulted Dr. Frye and gave him medication as he recommended but this frog just never got better.
Weird lumps would form randomly and then go away on his back and he would not eat often, then not at all, and then lost a lot of weight. After I saw he simply was not eating I tried force feeding, that worked with limited success even though I could usually get a dusted cricket in his mouth, most of the time he would spit it out. Eventually he would eat crickets if I released them in the enclosure and would hunt them on his own (but would not take from tongs) unfortunately while I thought he was perhaps improving, I found him on the bottom of the enclosure dead when I went to go feed him that night. The only thing I could think it could have been was parasites under the skin (spargana), which would have required surgery but I had no herp vet near me to even go that route (I did call vets, none could help). When I sent in the fecal sample from these frogs a little over a year ago, Dr. Frye said they had perhaps the worst parasite load he's ever seen, they became sick shortly after bringing them home from the pet store. This frog in particular had a nasty protozoa infection but I did treat with flagyl and panacur and he did seem to improve, until he started going down hill again last winter.. In a way I am kind of glad it is over because it was really hard to watch him suffer.
Anyways time to move on from it. I still have my other WTF, which oddly enough last year was the one I truly thought was a goner. He's huge now and seems really healthy, but he's a bit on the fat side though so I've put him on a diet.
I decided to really rethink my husbandry here. I have broken down the enclosure, (again). I disinfected the wood the best I can by cleaning it with very hot water and put it in the oven @ 250F. I have set up a simple water bottom (this is a 25x25x25 aquarium) and am going to slowly add some plants back. I put a small internal filter down there and have been spot checking for feces and completely replace the water every few days or so. Since the tank isn't so cluttered it's easy to remove poop daily now, which is nice. I've of course added rocks and wood for him to be able to leave the water if he winds up in it, he seems to have no interest in the water though and is always perched on the wood or hides under a plant during the day. I also painted 3 sides of the tank to reduce stress, I keep my frogs in a low traffic room of my house but I figure painting the sides would not hurt to make my WTF feel more secure.
I think overall this will be a much easier to maintain and more sterile environment than the false bottom/cocofiber setup I had before. I would like to eventually go with a riparium type setup and just mount the plants to the sides/back of the tank eventually, I am thinking peace lilies and rain lilies. It looks very bare in the tank now.
Anyone else out there go with water-bottoms in their WTF vivariums?
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Originally Posted by elly
