# Concerned About My Female Azureus



## BostonFrogs (Jan 16, 2018)

Hi all, I hope you can give me some insight into what's going on with Sprog, my female azureus. My concerns are threefold: 

1) She's darkened in color and isn't looking her usual, shiny self. Also, her black spots look a bit mottled, not the crisp contrast of black on blue.

2) The outermost digits on both her forelimbs seem somewhat fused together - they weren't like that a month ago.

3) The bony protrusions that form the arch on her back are asymmetrical.

Some background: I got her early October. She was about 3/4" - 1" long, so roughly 3.5 months old. Super active, very healthy eater. I was feeding fruit flies daily, supplementing with a 50/50 multi-vitamin and calcium mix. Important note, I didn't start supplementing with vitamin A (Dendrocare) until mid January. I've done some reading on supplements and my routine now is calcium dusting 2-3 times a week, multivitamin dusting once a week, vitamin A dusting once every two weeks.

Temperature has been consistently in the comfortable zone (mid-to-low 70F). Humidity has been consistently above 85% except for about two weeks in early January when I was out of town where the humidity was probably closer to 50% because the misting reservoir ran dry. Sprog eats like a pig and is generally very alert and active. My guess is that her health issues are a result of vitamin and mineral deficiency, but I would greatly appreciate any insight from the community!


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## jarteta97 (Jun 13, 2014)

A couple of questions: 
Has a fecal test been performed?
Can you post a pic of the enclosure?
Where/who did you get the frog from?
What are the names/brands of the calcium and multi-vitamin supplements?


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## BostonFrogs (Jan 16, 2018)

Thanks for your response! I suppose I can't respond without providing additional information that I omitted from my original post because I'm actually pretty embarrassed by it. Before I ordered four juvenile azureus from Josh's Frogs, I put the finishing touches on the 30 gallon vivarium with some pillow moss I collected around my neighborhood in mid September (pic 1).

I must not have sterilized it well enough, because after getting the frogs in October they showed varying degrees of what I assumed was a fungal infection towards the end of November when the temp was in the low 70s more often than not (pic 2, Boppy with heavy discoloration on his trunk and legs).

I've been lurking on this forum for a while, and carefully followed the lamisil treatment write up from nish07 here. The frogs responded to the treatment well. Over the course of the treatment, I discarded the pillow moss, and sprayed everything in the vivarium with a vinegar mix to try and kill any fungal spores. In hindsight, I should have stripped everything then and there, but that was just before I was leaving town for two weeks. So, I put the frogs back in the vivarium so my roommate could easily feed them while I was away. The rationale was that it's better to make sure they're fed than quarantined.

Came home and the frogs were all showing signs of reinfection. Put them through another round of the lamisil treatment and stripped everything from the vivarium and sterilized it with either a bleach solution (tank, misting system, plants) or put it in the oven at 450F for an hour (rocks, wood, clay substrate). The vivarium has been thriving since (pic 3, vivarium with the surviving plants).

The other frogs are doing well, just Sprog that seems to still be having issues (pic 4). I haven't done any fecal tests. I use Rep-Cal Phosphorous-Free Calcium with Vitamin D, Rep-Cal Herptivite, and Dendrocare for supplements.


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## BostonFrogs (Jan 16, 2018)

*Update*

It's been a little over six months since I last posted about Sprog, and well, good news! Her toes look better and her coloration has done an absolute 180. She has a lot more energy and is extremely inquisitive (annoyingly so when I've got the door open doing viv maintenance!).

While I've decided the problem was mostly a vitamin deficiency, the real issue was having not done enough research about supplementation, feeding schedules, humidity, temperature gradients, etc. In short, I spent too much time on the vivarium at the outset with the foam background, water feature, fogger, plants and going for a certain look, etc. and not focusing on the health of my frogs.

Lesson learned and, thankfully, no lasting harm done in this case. Thanks for reading!


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Wow, your frog does look much improved! It is even more challenging to turn around a deteriorating animal than it is to keep a healthy one healthy, so you must really be caring for your frogs well.



BostonFrogs said:


> I spent too much time on the vivarium at the outset with the foam background, water feature, fogger, plants and going for a certain look, etc. and not focusing on the health of my frogs.


This. I wish that more first timers (with all animals, not only frogs) realized that keeping animals is an exercise in biology, not aesthetics. Many people in the reptile hobby are consumed with morphs and selective breeding without having the slightest clue about the biology and natural history of the animals they are so excited about.

Again, congratulations on turning your frog around!


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## BostonFrogs (Jan 16, 2018)

> It is even more challenging to turn around a deteriorating animal than it is to keep a healthy one healthy, so you must really be caring for your frogs well.


Simplicity and consistency have been working wonders!



> I wish that more first timers (with all animals, not only frogs) realized that keeping animals is an exercise in biology, not aesthetics.


Not saying that folks shouldn't do their due diligence, because it could save them some heartache in the end, but there's no substitute for experience. I've grown as a frog keeper, and sometimes growing pains are just that, painful.

Anyway, I appreciate your comments and happy to have shared some success in the hobby. With any luck, someone can learn from my mistakes! Here are a few shots of the vivarium now and my azureus (from foreground to back): Boppy, Watcher, Mickey, and Sprog.


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

You might have caught your azureus in the middle of shedding. This thread discusses it as related to someone concerned about the behavior of their growing juvenile azureus.

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/26994-do-dart-frogs-shed.html


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