# Help! 2 dead frogs that were healthy active eaters



## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

hi im new here and have had a 30 gallon tall homade viv with 2 red eye tree frogs and 2 auratas and they have been doing great for over a month. i found 1 auratas dead in the water about 2 weeks ago. and then the last auratas today when i came home from work. but my wife said he was fine this morning. he was also near the water but not actually in it. i have a mixture of substrate to include florite with some other small gravel, and a layer of coconut husk on top. all live plants to include 1 large brom and some others which i forgot the names. have a water fall that trickles down a 16 inch or so tower into a 4 inch pool that is about 2 inches deep at the deepest. the pool was bigger but when the first frog died in there i did a water change and shrunk it down. the viv has a false bottom that allows for about 3 gallons of water. it also has a green wall which java moss is growing but hasnt taken off yet.
i did some research but maybe not enough. did i go wrong housing the red eyes with the darts?

diet consists of springtails, flightless fruit flys, and crickets.

thank you very much in advance for putting up with this terrible paragraph, and answering my questions.


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## JoshK (Jan 5, 2009)

I've seen darts swim, so I would guess they died from stress. Having those RETF trample them while trying to sleep would be enough to kill them.


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

To be honest, a month isn't that long, I don't really consider a month to be long enough to show that the frogs have been doing well.

How big are the crickets you've been feeding? The crickets that are for RETFs are much larger than the ones used for PDFs. That could cause some stress. Having diurnal animals (auratus) and nocturnal animals (RETFs) could cause some serious stress.

Dart frogs aren't _great_ swimmers, but as Josh mentioned they _can_ swim. I think it's unlikely that the frog drown without other factors involved.

If you get some more dart frogs (and I suggest you do, for herp lovers I think they're rather rewarding when taken care of properly) make each species a separate viv. It's not a cure-all solution, but it'll definately give you a MUCH higher probability of success.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

JoshK said:


> I've seen darts swim, so I would guess they died from stress. Having those RETF trample them while trying to sleep would be enough to kill them.


I highly doubt that would provide enough stress to kill the frogs. If the frog's night cycle was being disrupted to that point, I suspect they would have stopped feeding a long time ago. Interactions between disparate species is often "diagnosed" as a cause of death or other problems with animals without any supporting evidence. 

I agree a month is insufficient to determine whether or not a frog or frogs is doing well however I would look at some other factors first. For example, what kind of ventilation is being provided in the cage? This cage sounds like it was relatively newly set up and if there is poor air circulation then CO2 buildup could cause the death while not affecting the red eyes (as they would be perched higher in the cage). Alternatively if the frogs are wild caught, then the deaths may be due to other factors like parasite loads..... without a necropsy there is really no way to narrow it down....

Ed


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

well thank you very much for all your input. to give more info the viv is a 30 gal tall aquarium so all glass. the top has about 5 inches of glass and the rest is all screen which is about 6 inches x 24. i have a reptiglow 10.0 uvb bulb to keep the plants healthy and it sits on top of the screen its only 18 inches and 15w. this is the only lighting and it is on a timer so there is 12 on 12 off light cycle. my source of heat is a very small under water heater which the frogs have no access to and also an under tank heater that has to travel through 3 gal and 6 to 8 inches of soil. temp ranges between 72 - 78 depending on the ac in the house. i will post pictures shortly


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

oh and the darts feasted on pinheads to small pencil eraser size crickets. springtails that i intraduced a large quatity into the tank and fruit flies as well. the darts i had like to sleep about 6 to 10 inches above the ground on these platforms i made on the sides of the water fall. there were clumps of moss sitting up there where the frogs could sink down behind. so this would prevent them from being trampled at night. the only time the darts and red eyes would have contact is in the morning when the light first kicks on which is a lil after 7am. the daerts were quick to come up front and lick water off the plants and eat springtails as well. and the red eyes would hang around breifly before they disapeared into the plants.


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)




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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

here is a few i just took except for the frogs those pictures i had obviously the poor dart is no longer with us.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

stolenweasel said:


> . the daerts were quick to come up front and lick water off the plants and eat springtails as well. and the red eyes would hang around breifly before they disapeared into the plants.


I have signficant doubts about this "behavior" as frogs don't drink or lick up water droplets. If there are flowing droplets, they may on occasion try to capture them as a food item but once they figure out that they are not food they don't tend to bother with them anymore. 

Were both of the frogs found in the lowest section of the cage? 

Also crickets that are the same size as a number 2 pencil eraser are a little on the big side for the dendrobates and too small for adult red eyes. 

Ed


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

Sorry to hear about your loss. But as has already been stated there is NO possible way to say for sure what killed your Azureus without a necropsy.

Some things to consider:

The UVB does nothing for the plants, also the Repti-Sun 10 UVB is designed to mimic the solar UVB/UVA output for desert animals. Don't know if too much UVB intake can cause problems in darts, but may lead to too much Vitamin D3 and is something to look into. Were you also dusting calcium supplements with D3?

Too much screen on top. It would be very difficult to keep proper humidity in that environment with that much ventilation. Licking water droplets is odd behavior for darts and may have been a sign of dehydration from lack of humidity.

Are you RETFs wild caught or captive bred? Unfortunately many of the frogs bought in petstores are wc or "farm raised" and can carry with them pathogens that may have been transferred over to your darts. Again I don't know for sure what, if anything can be transferred between these two species, but it is something to consider. Perhaps somebody with more knowledge on this subject could clarify.

Despite your temp readouts it seems like there are way too many sources of heat. UTH and underwater heater may be a bit much. What are you using to measure the ambient temp in the viv? Did you take readings from floor level and canopy level? Are these heat sources monitored by a thermostat?

Aside from the RETFs themselves, the very crickets you use to feed the Tree Frogs could have caused excessive stress on the darts. 

...anyway just some food for thought.


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

yes both frogs were found upside down on the left side of the cage one was closer to the middle of the water and the other was more on the shore but still in the water. the pool has no edges where it would cause difficulty for them to get out its all smoothly sloped with the small gravel. and i doubt they messed with the larger crickets much i never witnessed them eating those, but they loved the spring tails.


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

thermostat is made by zoomed and is taken from ground level via a probe on a long wire and the digital readout is outside the tank. humidity is pretty well covered i think. i get alot of condensation on the top portion and sides of glass. all frogs were store bought in san diego.


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

and as far as the licking up water they may have been attempting to get more springtails and i thought they were drinking water. i probably will never know why they died. if it is parasites how can i protect my RETFs. they seem to be happy and healthy as well. the male sings every night. i usually wait until the light cuts off to put the larger crickets in the tank so the smaller frogs would have less interaction with them.


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

i got a dust supplement without d3 because i knew they would get it from the light.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

stolenweasel said:


> thermostat is made by zoomed and is taken from ground level via a probe on a long wire and the digital readout is outside the tank. humidity is pretty well covered i think. i get alot of condensation on the top portion and sides of glass. all frogs were store bought in san diego.


Getting fecals done on the red eyes will go a long way to deal with any potential parasite loads in those frogs. If you are concerned about chytrid (a possibility) then getting the frogs swabbed and tested will diagnose whether or not they have Bd. 

I would suggest getting a more accurate thermostat. The Indoor/Outdoor digital read thermostates that have a probe for reading outside temperatures are much more accurate. The probe is used to read the temperatures inside the cage. 

With that level of condensation, there appears to be little in the way of air circulation in the tank so one of the possible causes of death is going to be CO2 poisoning... particularly with the frogs being found in the lowest portion of the tank. This does not rule out any of the other possible causes of death... 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

stolenweasel said:


> i got a dust supplement without d3 because i knew they would get it from the light.


Typically a light is used as a back up source for UVB as there are many problems with the efficiency in using lights as the sole source of D3 metabolism. Factors such as distance from the bulb (must be less than 18 inches), materials between the bulb and the animals (even screen signficantly reduces the light available and if you are using screen fine enough to keep the fruit flies and small crickets inside the tank, the frogs are probably getting virtually no actual UVB exposure. Even larger mesh screen can reduce UVB by as much as 30%. I highly doubt the frogs are getting sufficient D3 from the light...

Exposure to UVB when giving the frogs a supplement that contains D3 does not cause the frogs to manufacture D3 in excess of thier metabolic needs. The conversion of provitamin D3 to D3 is under feedback control so UVB exposure does not cause the frogs to manufacture excess D3. 

Ed


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## stolenweasel (Mar 26, 2010)

ok what do you reccomend for eliminating excess co2.i could run an airline in on a pump like you would use in a fish tank for an airstone setup. i will refrain from dart frogs until i can build another tank an observe the RETFs for awhile. i think i moved a little fast with this.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Anything that encourages air exchange will resolve it. See Carbon Dioxide 1

Ed


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## goatdude (Apr 24, 2009)

why has no one said this yet. red eyes pee in the water. the water can and will be come toxic over time. if you were finding the darts dead near or in the water. that's most likely why. as for crickets, if they died from them you'd see marks on the dart. other thing is to check is water temp. maybe the heater boiled them for a sec. but as you said you found the in or near the water. so that's where you'd start. the water. just be glad the red eyes didn't eat the dart frog. they are known to eat smaller frogs


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## Tony (Oct 13, 2008)

If the water is nasty enough that it killed the darts it should effect the red eyes too. I really doubt a red eye can eat an adult Dendrobates, thumbnails sure but auratus is a bit of a stretch. 

Red eyes and darts are poor candidates for mixing with darts, unless you have a VERY large viv that can accommodate the microclimates both need. 

Definitely run fecals on the red eyes, most of them on the market lately have been Nicaraguan imports and may need a bit of veterinary attention. Red eyes do best with much less humidity and more ventilation than darts, I keep all of my tree/leaf/monkey frogs in exo terras with the full screen top intact.





goatdude said:


> why has no one said this yet. red eyes pee in the water. the water can and will be come toxic over time. if you were finding the darts dead near or in the water. that's most likely why. as for crickets, if they died from them you'd see marks on the dart. other thing is to check is water temp. maybe the heater boiled them for a sec. but as you said you found the in or near the water. so that's where you'd start. the water. just be glad the red eyes didn't eat the dart frog. they are known to eat smaller frogs


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