Geriatric Fire Belly - sick, or just old?

[alane]

I recently treated my FBT tank for worms. I do not know whether or not they were parasites. But I spotted three sorts of worms. One species was very small, maybe as you describe. One species was much longer and like a filament. And one was a planaria.

I added a dose of Fenbenzadole that I purchased from Amazon to the tank. All worms dead in five days. Did no harm to the shrimp, snails or toads nor other microscopic organisms, but it eradicated the worms in a very targeted manner.

Search for "fish fenbenzadole" on amazon. Kills worms dead.

[sambal]

Some of my fire bellies are quite old as well; I bought them as adults when I was 9, I am 25 now so they must be at least 16 years old. I recognize some of the symptoms you mentioned but the funny thing is in my case the symptoms always seem to be temporary. They can get extremely clumsy; missing crickets right in front of their nose. However after some weeks or even months they can get back at it and are able to catch crickets before they even hit the ground. The same with their color, sometimes they are dark brownish for extended periods of time but they never lose the ability to turn bright green again, always a nice surprise to see the sudden change in color after months of being dark brown. Also their appetite divers greatly from being extremely hungry always to having zero interest in any food.

My guess is that the increase in appetite of your toad is not a bad sign at all! I think a sick toad would eat less instead of more. If i were you i wouldn't worry too much, of course your toad is very old but these changes don't have to be bad signs.

BTW; fire bellies are actually surprisingly social creatures. Maybe a tank mate would do him well. If you're lucky you'll even end up with offspring, how amazing would that be! You'll spend your whole life with the same toad family.