# Eggs won't develop



## Patricaky (Dec 29, 2015)

I bought a breeding pair of Patricia's and this will make the 3rd time they have payed but the eggs keep turning milkey colored and nothing happens. I have tried leaveing them in the tanks with the parents to make sure there getting fertilized but still nothing.


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## rick s (Mar 14, 2007)

1st thing people are going to ask are what supplements are you dusting your flies with and what temperature is the tank at?


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## Tazman (May 26, 2013)

First if you are properly supplementing your frogs use methylene blue on the eggs.
Second frogs in the wild ingest antifungal compounds in their food. I had mixed success with hatches surviving until I started using methyl paraben in my fruit fly cultures. I now get hatch out with every clutch. Also, remove the eggs as soon as the frogs are done laying.


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## Patricaky (Dec 29, 2015)

I use dendroplus. And I will try methyl para end when I can order it. Do u just add a little when u start ff cultures? Thanks for your replies. These are my first frogs and I'm still learning.


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## rick s (Mar 14, 2007)

Unsure on the dendro plus. I have used repashy calcium plus for my frogs for the past 2 years and rarely ever lose an egg. I also dust them at every feeding. This supplement is suppose to be the only one you should need but others add some calcium supplement every few weeks as well. 

When I first started breeding darts I used methylene blue but stopped and haven't noticed any egg lose. I think if you supplement correctly it's probably not needed.


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## Patricaky (Dec 29, 2015)

It's dendrocare. I'm sorry. The temps range from 71 or72 to 80. I dust every feeding. Could it be that the frogs are stressed? They layed one clutch a week after I got them then another after I moved them to a new tank. The last one. They were in the new tank about a month when they layed the last clutch. I just checked on them and one was glazed all the way over and 3 was starting to. One is still black it's been about 4 days since they layed. Should I see any development?


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## erikm (Oct 1, 2015)

Throw away the dendrocare and get yourself Repashy Calcium Plus and Repashy Vit A.

Calc plus every feeding or every other feeding and Vit A once a month.


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## rick s (Mar 14, 2007)

The one that is still black might make it. Usually takes about a week and you should see some development. Tank temps look good but nothing over 80 for any extended period. 

Just start using the repashy products and success should happen. I'm assuming they are laying these in s Petri dish? You will need to keep the eggs moist if your pulling them. 1/2 way up on the eggs with some aged tap water will work. Don't let them dry out.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

rick s said:


> . Usually takes about a week and you should see some development. Tank temps look good ut.



Actually unless the person has their enclosure tightly sealed to maximize humidity is not sound advice. There shouldn't be issues with the eggs even if the temps are 80 F for significant periods of time. That advice is a hold over from the days when people sealed the enclosures to try and keep the humidity over 80-85% resulting in a number of issues including risk of overheating the animals (which is contrary to their normal environment in the wild) as well as causing problems like bromeliads rotting. 

Some dendrobatids (such as D. auratus will choose temperatures close to 80 F (78 F) as optimal tadpole deposition sites (which should also translate to the egg development). 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Tazman said:


> First if you are properly supplementing your frogs use methylene blue on the eggs.
> Second frogs in the wild ingest antifungal compounds in their food. I had mixed success with hatches surviving until I started using methyl paraben in my fruit fly cultures. I now get hatch out with every clutch. Also, remove the eggs as soon as the frogs are done laying.


This is highly suspect for several reasons, first off, there is a significant difference between alkaloids and methylparaben. That substance is not an alkaloid and as such is not going to follow that pathway for uptake and utilization (such as storage). Second, methyl paraben does not accumulate in the tissues (there isn't a storage mechanism for it) so again its not very likely to end up in the eggs as it is going to also be rapidly excreted by the insects (remember no storage in the tissues). Third the metabolite of methylparaben isn't really antifungicidal as it doesn't stop fungal growth so much as slow it down. 

You may want to run down a copy of Soni MG et al; Food Chem Toxicol 40 (10): 1335-73 (2002)] 

I would suggest that this is a case of coincidence and not correlation ... 

some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

As an aside comment if you have to utilize methylene blue or another product to ensure that the eggs don't have issues with fungal or bacterial attacks it would be prudent to reexamine the husbandry for problems. Healthy eggs should be able to withstand those problems unless something environmental or husbandry related is causing them to have issues with those infectious agents. They don't tend to attack healthy eggs ... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

Ed said:


> As an aside comment if you have to utilize methylene blue or another product to ensure that the eggs don't have issues with fungal or bacterial attacks it would be prudent to reexamine the husbandry for problems. Healthy eggs should be able to withstand those problems unless something environmental or husbandry related is causing them to have issues with those infectious agents. They don't tend to attack healthy eggs ...
> 
> Some comments
> 
> Ed


^^This bears repeating over and over and over

The methylene blue technique is outdated and no longer needed. Provide the proper supplements and environmental parameters and you should be fine. Anyone using this technique should probably discontinue it because they are potentially providing a crutch for eggs that otherwise wouldn't make it. This can have negative ramifications from a selective breeding perspective.

Also, I'm not really sure why it was recommended that you throw out the dendrocare... seems like a bit of a waste. You will be fine using it as long as you supplement with vitamin A once a month or so (may want to do it every 2 weeks or so until you start getting more viable eggs). I rotate between calcium + and dendrocare with my regular feedings. The only issue with dendrocare is that you need a separate carotenoid supplement on hand, but that can be addressed by using something like naturose or repashy superpig. So... not necessarily worth throwing out an otherwise fine supplement.


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## rick s (Mar 14, 2007)

Ed said:


> Actually unless the person has their enclosure tightly sealed to maximize humidity is not sound advice. There shouldn't be issues with the eggs even if the temps are 80 F for significant periods of time. That advice is a hold over from the days when people sealed the enclosures to try and keep the humidity over 80-85% resulting in a number of issues including risk of overheating the animals (which is contrary to their normal environment in the wild) as well as causing problems like bromeliads rotting.
> 
> Some dendrobatids (such as D. auratus will choose temperatures close to 80 F (78 F) as optimal tadpole deposition sites (which should also translate to the egg development).
> 
> ...


So Ed you can keep most dart temps around 81-82 if not tightly sealed? I usually keep mine at 73-76 with about 95% humidity. My quote was try not to keep the tank over 80 most of the time. May need to up my temps a bit for egg laying.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Agree with Most of whats being said here....short of the methyl paraben and methlene blue. Your problem with your eggs are most likely a lack of vitamin A. It is very easy to oversupplement Vit A, and it is recomended to be used no more than a few times a month when frogs are suspect of being deprived of it. It can take a few months to get the level where it is needed in their system though. I would NOT throw out the Dendrocare, I have not used it, but I understand it is a quality product. There are some vits you want to avoid, that isnt one of them. But, they do not make a vit a supplement, that you will have to get from repashy


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

rick s said:


> So Ed you can keep most dart temps around 81-82 if not tightly sealed? I usually keep mine at 73-76 with about 95% humidity. My quote was try not to keep the tank over 80 most of the time. May need to up my temps a bit for egg laying.


Tightly sealing the enclosures is a hold over from beginnings of the hobby when it was due in part to the attempt to contain the fruit flies. Frogs are able to cool themselves via evaporative cooling (which has been discussed a lot) provided the humidity isn't excessively high. Once you get to the upper end of the humidity, then you've removed the ability of the frogs to cool themselves and even for the enclosure to cool itself via evaporation. In addition, the sealing of the enclosures traps heat inside the enclosure and unlike in the wild, it is very difficult to impossible for the frogs to avoid it. This is why many of the old care sheets recommended keeping the temperatures below 75-78 F as it gave some wiggle room in the case of a heat wave etc. Now if the enclosure is well vented so the humidity isn't close to 90-100% the frogs and enclosure can now lose heat via air exchange and via evaporation. Additionally this also tends to create cooler areas that the frogs can also utilize to behaviorally avoid the heat. 

The humidity has to be above 60% (Lotters et al), it does not need to be over 85-90%

With well vented enclosures I've seen Dendrobatids out and actively foraging at temperatures over 90 F. 

Some comments. 

Ed


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## rick s (Mar 14, 2007)

Ed said:


> Tightly sealing the enclosures is a hold over from beginnings of the hobby when it was due in part to the attempt to contain the fruit flies. Frogs are able to cool themselves via evaporative cooling (which has been discussed a lot) provided the humidity isn't excessively high. Once you get to the upper end of the humidity, then you've removed the ability of the frogs to cool themselves and even for the enclosure to cool itself via evaporation. In addition, the sealing of the enclosures traps heat inside the enclosure and unlike in the wild, it is very difficult to impossible for the frogs to avoid it. This is why many of the old care sheets recommended keeping the temperatures below 75-78 F as it gave some wiggle room in the case of a heat wave etc. Now if the enclosure is well vented so the humidity isn't close to 90-100% the frogs and enclosure can now lose heat via air exchange and via evaporation. Additionally this also tends to create cooler areas that the frogs can also utilize to behaviorally avoid the heat.
> 
> The humidity has to be above 60% (Lotters et al), it does not need to be over 85-90%
> 
> ...



Thanks Ed perfect explanation!


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## Patricaky (Dec 29, 2015)

Thanks everybody. i learned alot. i will be picking up some rephasy next time i get a chance. my humidity it 99%. ive drilled hole to try to get it down but i have a water feature i cant get it to budge below 99%. my tank stays in the low 70s on cold days and upper 70s on warm days. is there some kind heater that regulates the temperature?


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## tardis101 (Apr 11, 2012)

I agree with the others, it's likely a nutrition issue. Having said that, occasionally I have clutches that need some external help. Sometime stuff happens (like maybe I didn't get a bad egg out soon enough, or maybe when scraping a clutch off a leaf I damaged then. And then I start to see the eggs looking bad. I have had some success with use of black water extract by dripping a couple drops on top of the egg clutch. When I say some success, let me clarify. I've done this a grand total of twice (I think) but both times all the eggs hatched after i was pretty sure they'd all go bad. It could be coincidence and all of the eggs would have hatched had I not done anything. I'm just throwing it out there as something to try in the event you have a clutch starting to look bad.


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