Red eye tree frog discoloration

[Tony]

If he is looking bad he probably won't make it through the night. From what I have seen the infection does not seem to spread within an enclosure, but keep a close eye on the others just in case.

[vswe711]

I had hope at 5:30 this morning and he was still alive!
I just went in the room the frogs are in and he is dead
What should I do now with the tank?
Do we need to clean it out good?
Should we get the other frogs checked?
I feel soo bad that I let the little guy down
Besides not getting him to the vet fast enough...What did we do wrong?
How does this happen? How do we avoid it happening again.
We lost a Whites 2 weeks ago.
Thank you

Vicki

[bshmerlie]

Vicki Im so sorry he didn't make it. ....but you're not out of the woods yet because you have two other frogs to care for. Now...you mentioned that another frog died two weeks ago...do you know what happened to him? We need to carefully go over your husbandry practices and make sure the needs of the frogs are being met. Im going to ask some questions and its important that they all be answered honestly so that we can come up with the best plan to make sure the two remaining red eyes don't get sick and are cared for properly. Also please look over the Red Eye care article on the left.
1. How long have you had your frogs?
2. Where did you buy them from?
3. Are they captive bred or wild caught?
4. Were they acting normal when you first got them?
5. Have they been eating and pooping?
6. What food and what size food are you feeding them?
7. Are you dusting the food with vitamin and calcium supplements?
8. What temp are you keeping them at?
9. What humidity are you keeping them at and what are you using to monitor it?
10. We need to see a picture of you enclosure if you can post that for us.
11. What type of water are you using in the water dish and how often do you change it?
12. What kind of substrate are you using?
13. What type of lighting?
14. Are you using anything for heating?
15. What type of lid does the enclosure have?
Ventilation is very important with tree frogs and lack of ventilation or a constantly wet environment can lead to bacterial infections. Let's try and figure out what's going on. Once you've got the husbandry skills down pat you will find Red Eyes are really easy to care for. I look forward to your responses.

[vswe711]

Hi Cheri
Thank you for doing this.
To start off with we have one red eye and one green tree frog, together (?? unsure about if thats ok after being on this site)
They all did act fine when we got them and after seeing pictures from when we brought them home and when the whites was dying I should have been able to see the decline, but it was gradual.
First the red eye that is still alive started and still has white spots on his back
Then the the green got brown spots on his back (a little over a week ago we started treating him with ssd cream)
Then the whites got a green algae looking color on his head, and started acting slower, tired, didn't seem to be eating.
The red eye that just died started with the green spotting was treated with the ssd (we thought we should treat everyone because they all had some kind of spotting going on, and we thought that everyone would be susceptible) His health slowly deteriorated, getting skinny and not a good jump.
All of the spotting started about 3 weeks ago, except the red eye that has been about 2 weeks, but he would go back to his normal green at first after the day went on.

1. 2 months
2. green from Petsmart, red eye from Petco
3. I don't know
4.Yes
5. They seemed to be, when their health started declining we weren't sure who was and wasn't eating.
6.Small crickets and mealworms
7.Calcium with D3
8.Up to 85 during the day and it has gotten as low as 68 at night.
9.We try to keep it above 50 on the hygrometer. It is a constant struggle to keep the humidity up, I do mist alot during the day. I finally put plastic wrap on half of the screen top.
11. Spring water and it is changed daily
12. We started with moss then switched to coco fiber
13. UVB 2.0
14. a heater that sticks to the bottom of the tank, didn't seem to keep it warm enough when the Chicagoland temps were in the 40s and 50s, so we added a space heater in the room, for daytime temps.
15. a screen lid and just yesterday I added plastic wrap to half.

[bshmerlie]

Well at this point I would contact Dr.Frye, show him some pictures of the Red Eye that died and if you have any of the Whites with the green patches. He'll probably suggest you do a round of baytril on the remaining two.

The problem of getting frogs from places like Petco or Petsmart is that they usually get their frogs from large suppliers instead of local breeders. That means your frog if it wasn't wild caught (by some miracle) then it could have come into contact with other frogs that were wild caught. Then it is put in an enclosure that may or may not have been cleaned prior to it arriving at the store. So who knows what he is carrying. Then he is put into a tank at home with two other frogs from different continents. Each carrying their own toxins and parasites that only they are use to. Sort of like Columbus coming to the new world and infecting the indians with diseases their bodies had no immunity for. Anyway I would treat them as wild caught frogs.

As far as the tank goes....I would gut it and start over. I don't know if you saw my thread: "what does your tank look like?" I posted some pictures...that's kindof what we need to be shooting for when it comes to our frogs. So here is what I recommend :
You are going to need a few supplies:
1. Leca or hydroton (red or brown clay balls) for drainage layer under the soil.
2. Screen mesh the size of the tank to keep soil out of the Leca.
3. Soil...if you don't already have some...discard the old stuff.
4. One huge Pothos or several smaller large leafed indoor plants. See Johns dart frog terrarium build to get an idea how to set it up.
5. Rinse off the plants really well
6. Cover up three sides of the tank and make sure it is in a quiet and dark room. Completely dark at night.
7. Remember a lot of plants...fill it in...they walk from beach to branch.
8. Have your water dish in a small clearing.
9. Try a cricket bowl that will help you monitor if they are eating.
10. 85 degrees is too warm for them...stay around 76- 78.