# Help! Disease? OR Stress?



## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

An adult green and black auratus from a reptile show which was said to have come from a frog farm in Panama, has either stressed or stricken a few of my frogs with a disease or parasite.

I quarentined him and the other auratus a purchased together for over a month in a large 120gal community tank. I ended up putting him with other frogs because I didn't have a new vivarium built yet. 

First he/she went in a 10gal with a pair of cobalt tincs. The aruatus became shy and withdrawn and after abouit a week I decided to remove him. I then put him in a 12gal tank with a tinc. patricia and an azureus less than a year old and a 2year old azureus. (please with hold the stoning) 
The tincs from the first tank soon became lathargic and the female died shortly then after. The male has been real ill but is regaining appetite and movement.
Not long after going in with the three frogs there was noticable change in all the frogs attitude and appitite and the older azures (female) started to chase and mount all the frogs. The patricia became most stressed first so I moved it to a quarentine container. It died about 4 days later. I then removed the aruatus. He or she is still fine in quarentine. The younger of the two remaining azureus just died yesterday after being lathargic for a week or so. It now seems the older azureus is recovering.

Was it stress, illness, or parasite.


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Hey, well I won't stone you for mixing, but now you see one of the reasons why people don't mix. Your Auratus was shy in the cobalts tank probley because tincs are known for stressing other frogs out.
My guess is it is a Parasite. If I remember right, some parasites help some things but the same parasite can kill others. But it is the same with illness's, a flu can kill a baby or an older person, but do almost nothing to a teenager.

Just my 2 cents, Curt


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

Sorry about your losses. If I had to guess I'm leaning towards parasite/virus, the best way to find out is have a fecal done. Get in touch with a vet, I use Dr. Frye, you can find his info at http://www.fryebrothersfrogs.com Unfourtunately this is a lesson I learned the hard way, don't mix frogs that haven't been quarantined, and when you buy frogs from a new source get fecals done to ensure good health. Generally speaking, I wouldn't mix frogs or plants from viv to viv unless I was %100 sure about the health of all the frogs. Its always better to go buy a cheap 10 gallon then risk the helath of your collection. About 6 years ago I killed about twenty frogs from an import pair I moved into the same room with the rest of my collection. It never shared tanks, I suspect that fruit flies did the job of transporting the virus. Again, sorry to hear about your losses.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

Thanks for the support and the info guys. I've had such a good experience with frogs for the past two years and have inspired several people to make really nice viviariums and keep frogs. This has been very devistating. The older azureus was my first frog and I really hope she hangs on. I'll definately proceed with much more cautoin now.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

We have flagulated protozoa...

I'm treating with metronidazole 1-2 drops orally. The vet said to repeat again in 5 days. 

Does anyone have experience treating these little protozoans?


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

All the protozoa that I've treated with Metronidazole have been quelled by dropping the medication on the frogs back once daily for 10 days. Trying to get it in the frogs mouth, unless you have sufficient experience, can be traumatizing and cause more problems.
A few suggestions for next time:
Don't quarantine in anything much bigger than 20 gallons, unless it's a specifically touchy or active frog (think some of the bigger Epipedobates sp.). This will keep you from having to clean a giant enclosure if the frog actually is ill, and it will keep the food items in closer proximity to the animals. Also, obviously, don't quarantine frogs from different groups together, that defeats the purpose of quarantine entirely. As for the mixing issue, I think you've learned your lesson.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

Thanks Dane,

Do you think that I have to worry about the water and material in the vivarium that the sick frogs were in being contaminated. If so, will the protozoa live for a certain length of time, and should put metro in the water and spray down the viv? Thanks


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Anything that was in the tank and exposed to the frog is a potential contaminant. Not knowing what kind of protozoan it is, I can't say how long it can survive outside of a host. The only safe thing to do is to sterilize the entire tank, and I doubt that just spraying Metro would do anything other than waste the medication, as it's designed to be effective when taken internally by the afflicted animal.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

was the deceased frogs necropsied? there is also a possibility of chytrid infection.. 

Ed


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

Yes Ed, the dead frog was necropsied and the vet who has some experience with dart frogs just said she was full of flagulated protozoa. What is a Chytrid infection?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease caused by the infectious fungal agent Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. 

It can cause rapid death in the frogs once infected and is most active in anurans kept below 75 F (with about 72-73 F being the most ideal temperature range). 
It has been isolated from frogs (including dendrobatids) in the pet trade (and even some Zoological collections) and is causing massive amphibian declines in a number of parts of the world including Central America. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

so a quick, cheap, at home chytrid test would be to get your frogs down in the 60`s and see how they do(if they are all dendrobatids)?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

While deaths can begin to occur in 2 weeks you would have to keep the frogs at those temperatures for at least 38 days (this was the length of time it took for all of the infected control dendrobates to die from chytrid) but you would still have to get them necropsied to be sure that the frogs died from chytrid and not from other diseases due to the stress... 

The PCR test costs about $25 a test at this time so it is actually pretty inexpensive.. (much cheaper than losing frogs to stress and then having them necropsied to determine that they did die from chytrid). 

(see Nichols, D.K., Lamirande, E.W., Pessier, A.P. and Longcore, J.E. (2001) Experimental transmission of cutaneous chytridiomycosis in two species of dendrobatid frogs. J. Wildlife Dis. 37(1): 1-11. for lengths of time from infection to death)


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

The nice thing about the pcr test is that they can pool up to 8 samples in one test. This means you can put 8 swabs in 8 seperate containers. they take a sample from each container and do one test($20-25 for the test and $20 for pooling the samples). If they all come up negative your done. If not they can go back and test 1 by one to see which tanks are infected and which ones aren`t. Or you can just save the money for a blanket test by pooling them yourself. this way you can do 80 tests for $200. very cost effective for large collections.


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