# Vivarium Catastrophe, leaking water, 3 dead frogs ... then found my first tadpole....



## frankrom (Jan 14, 2012)

Vivarium Catastrophe, leaking water, 3 dead frogs ... then found my first tadpole....

Just though I’d share my story…

What can I say…? I’ve been having a rough few days with my vivarium. Noticed my water levels in my water feature leaking and going into my false bottom and I knew it would be a lot of work to repair it.

I had to tear out my water feature, remove the great stuff foam, scrap a ton of silicone off my glass, remove the silicone around my pane of glass separating my false bottom from the water feature, resilcone it with aquarium silicone, clean the glass, let it dry, and now filling it up and doing a leak test as we speak.

Well while doing the above… I noticed my internal fans not working. Looked it in and found a dead frog wedged into my fan. Needless to say I freaked out and got pissed off… looked into my chamber some more and found another dead frog, and ANOTHER… for a total of 3 dead frogs which all suffered the same death. 

What happened was I have a screen over top of my air chamber (I built internal air system like grim did) and I had sealed it all up so frogs couldn’t go in it. But the back part of the mesh was a little lose but it was out of the tank so I didn’t think much of it because I figured the frogs couldn’t go UNDER IT because it was out of the tank… well I guess the frogs were going on top of the mess and despite their little size when their bodies were on the mesh it pushed the mesh down enough that they could slip into the chamber… and after they were in the chamber since the weight was off the mesh it came back up in essence trapping the frog before it fell to its death in my fan. I lost three of my frogs to this… $100 a frog (imitators). I do not even care about the money... I can’t help but fell LIKE SHIT for killing 3 frogs.

Needless to say I continued to repair my tank as I first described and after I finally able to get it all done which took days and dried my tank out… I rehooked up my misting system and I saw a daddy frog come out instantly once the misters came on (I guess they were waiting for some water as it was dry) and he had my first tadpole on his back…

It was really exciting to see my frog tadpole especially after all I endured…

I just found him now in a brome swimming looking super strong! So pumped!

I cannot find any more tadpoles in my tank though… Is it possible only 1 tad survived? I have a large 100 gallon tank and over 20 bromes in it … so it is hard to find them even if there were more than one….


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## frankrom (Jan 14, 2012)

I had only bought 6 frogs too... so I lost half of my frogs to this mistake... unreal.


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds to me like you may have some aggression issues. Imitators form mostly monogamous bonds, and are better as pairs than groups. I have a feeling the frogs you found dead were trying to escape aggression from one or more of the others. Keep a very close eye on your remaining frogs.

You said you put everything back together. Did you re- silicone and gs the water feature?



Ps, grats on the tad


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

How awful...


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## Sticky Fingers (Sep 28, 2011)

Sorry for your loss.


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## frankrom (Jan 14, 2012)

I resiliconed the glass in the water feature. I am not going to use great stuff in the water again. Going to do something else.

Hmm I was actually told by Mark from Understories that these frogs are actually great in groups. Either way it is a large tank.

Just to add about them not doing well in groups. I have a picture of 3 of them in one brome....


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## claymore (Feb 24, 2010)

I'm a little confused, so all this happened in one tank? 

I hope you did not silicone or GS the tank with the frogs still inside.

The fumes alone from the silicone would kill any frog in the tank.


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## slipperheads (Oct 17, 2007)

Having a hard time picturing the screen chamber, but im really sorry for your loss


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

claymore said:


> I'm a little confused, so all this happened in one tank?
> 
> I hope you did not silicone or GS the tank with the frogs still inside.
> 
> The fumes alone from the silicone would kill any frog in the tank.


This was my thought


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## frankrom (Jan 14, 2012)

Yes this happened all in one tank. Just found a small snail in my tank to boot. I feel like scraping this whole thing. 

The fumes did not kill my remaining frogs. I have a large tank and lots of fans moving air around.


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## shibbyplustax (Feb 28, 2011)

frankrom said:


> Yes this happened all in one tank. Just found a small snail in my tank to boot. I feel like scraping this whole thing.
> 
> The fumes did not kill my remaining frogs. I have a large tank and lots of fans moving air around.


You didn't remove the frogs while doing this? I would have at least put the remaining frogs in a temp. tank while that cured for a few days. You still should if you just siliconed it today, just to be on the safe side with your remaining frogs.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Sorry to hear it Frank but drop everything and get those others out of there RIGHT AWAY. You really don't want to be exposing them to silicone fumes.

Snails are are not the end all to end all. No big deal there. Bait them now and then with a piece of lettuce to knock down the population. Little buggers manage to find their way into our vivs more often than most of us care to admit.


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## claymore (Feb 24, 2010)

frankrom said:


> Yes this happened all in one tank. Just found a small snail in my tank to boot. I feel like scraping this whole thing.
> 
> The fumes did not kill my remaining frogs. I have a large tank and lots of fans moving air around.



Large tank or not, silicone fumes can and will kill amphibians!

Try sniffing fresh silicone. I bet your nose will burn and your eyes will water. 
Now imagine those feelings all over your skin. Thats how your frogs would feel.

Not to mention what if one of the frogs came into contact with the silicone. 

With the water problem, the fan issues, the snail issues, and the silicone issues... I would move the remaining frogs and tadpoles to a temp enclosure and start from scratch.


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## Rusty_Shackleford (Sep 2, 2010)

Not to mention the high humidity in the viv would prolong the cure time if the silicone cured properly at all. You may have a problem with your water feature again in the future.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Water Features are overrated. They almost always end up in situations like yours (ok, not quite as bad as yours).

Your case is why the majority of us will say "NO WATER FEATURE!" if asked.

Good luck with your recovery.

s


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## rgwheels (Feb 19, 2008)

Sorry to hear about the frogs man! I would have pooped if I saw three dead frogs!

Hopefully, the remainders will do well!


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## diggenem (Sep 2, 2011)

Damn sorry to hear that. I love water features but after reading this and the fact that hobbyist spend so much time , effort and money into their frogs I think I will skip the water feature as Well... it's hard coming from aquariums though 

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## Erikb3113 (Oct 1, 2008)

Yeah I would say they were crawling into the fan to try to escape the fumes and get some fresh air. I try not to do any siliconing in the same room as an occupied viv, much less inside. It makes me nauseous to be in a small room with large amounts of fresh silicone, and I doubt I'm as sensitive as those frogs. Very tragic though...I'm sorry for your loss. I've had my water feature issues as well..thankfully I realized mine before the tank was occupied. Good luck and congrats on the tad.


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## nburns (May 3, 2005)

epiphytes etc. said:


> I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds to me like you may have some aggression issues. Imitators form mostly monogamous bonds, and are better as pairs than groups. I have a feeling the frogs you found dead were trying to escape aggression from one or more of the others. Keep a very close eye on your remaining frogs.
> 
> You said you put everything back together. Did you re- silicone and gs the water feature?
> 
> ...


Like many other species Imitators can be quite aggressive. A large tank always helps. Not saying that they went in the van because of aggressive behavior but you may want to keep this in mind.


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