# Please, my frogs die @ morph, 2 dead, one going, so far...



## Guest (May 6, 2006)

i have hylid tads in 1 gallon glass jars, they morph no problem, i remove old waste and add a turkey baster of water each day, and feed them tropical fish flake... no problem... i have 5 healthy froglets so far eating f.f. like mad. 
my darts though, originally 2 leuc tads and 3 vent tads, i stupidly put together (my first time with all this) in an automatic watering system i built, in which a 3.5 gallon bucket sits atop another acting as a reservoir, the top bucket has a 8 line emitter from rainbird, and an overflow which goes through a 32 oz. cup of hydroton in attempts at some biofiltration, and pothos planted into gravel around the cups. the tads are fed the same as the hylid tads, only they also get spirulina. they develop great, look really healthy, pop front legs and are active for a few days, and then they bloat, sit looking ill for about a day, and then turn upside down and die, floating on the surface until at some point they finally sink. not one has managed to lose it's tail, and i'm incredibly worried. the stomach does appear to be swollen and round, like a gas bubble... my emmiters in the top do not go directly into the 16 oz cups that hold the tads, they sit next to them and about once a week i put them into the cups to flush waste... my pH in the system in 7.8, the day the first frog died it was @ 8.0, the ppm on a hanna scale was averaging 280, the day the first frog died it was 310 i believe. water was lacking in the bottom tank which was what affected both i believe... the remaining 2 vents are still in the system, and my last leuc is removed from the system in about 1/4" of water in it's own cup, where it sat bloating and not moving until this morning it too turned upside down and will likely be dead by the time i get home, although it was twitching a little when i disturbed it before i left... can anybody tell me whats going on? it's killing me, and i feel like a terrible parent!
thanks in advance,
robert.


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

> can anybody tell me whats going on?


Not with certainty, but I suspect you are correct in your suspicions that it is related to water quality.

I would recommend removing them to individual 8 oz cups, filled with water with a neutral to slightly acidic pH.


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## Guest (May 9, 2006)

thankyou Josh, 
my last remaining leuc was removed 3 days ago and has mostly lost it's tail, was moved into a paper towel enclosure with some pothos, seems to be doing ok, but not active by any stretch of the imagination... the eyes are shiny black and it seems pretty fat, but not very active... thanks again,
robert.


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## Guest (May 10, 2006)

so what are my options for lowering the pH? i have not had any success using oak leaf tannins for this purpose... could i use citric or phosphoric if it was treated a day or so before using? btw, one of the last 2 vents died, the other one is in a cup though, and seems to be doing better. the leuc, i just don't know... it has very little use for it's front legs it seems, and i haven't seen enough pic's of sls to say really... they have all joints and digits, but they seem pretty small in proportion to the frog... does anybody have any good photos on that? the gallery, unless my search was poor, seemed lacking... i think you are right about water quality, i was reading my notes from when i got them around the begining of march and at that point the pph in there was more like 140. why haven't i been comparing notes? i'm making some serious mistakes here, and i realize i screwed this up pretty bad... hope nobody thinks i'm too a terrible person...  i'm learning... 
robert.


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## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

If you're starting with rather hard tap water, it's going to be difficult to lower the pH due to the water's buffering capacity.

Recently there was a poll/thread on what kinds of water hobbyists were successfully raising tads with. While many used aged tap water, many others used RO/DI water (which you can find at stores), mixed with some Black Water Extract, tadpole tea, etc. 

BTW, you're not a terrible person!  It's the good people who feel bad when things go wrong, and try to learn and fix them.

--Diane


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