# d. Azuerous Seizures and Death...help?



## Guest (Sep 27, 2005)

I had two female azureous together in a planted tank for three years. They would grapple a lot over food, but both were doing fine. They were always out in front, bold and ravenous. They eat pinheads dusted with Herpvtite.

A month ago I got a male azureous. He is skinny and shy, hides a lot, and is a poor eater. He spit out a pinhead that had the herpvite on it, but takes fruitflies. He was in a seperate planted tank for 3 weeks quarantine.

Last week I put the less-aggressive female in the male's tank. The female immediately started eating all the food the male had left behind. They ignored each other, although the female liked to hide in the same places the male did. There was no fighting or calling, no interaction of any kind. The male was still shy, and the female was still bold and voraciously eating.

Last night I put some pinheads in, and noticed the female wasn't really noticing where I had dropped the food. So I gently started to gently move her towards the food. (When she was with the other female, they would fight over food and the female was a lot rougher than my finger.)

She immediately had a seizure and her legs were all stretched out, her eyes and throat working spasmodically. I was dismayed, but thought perhaps that could be the 'playing dead' response that I've seen in books. I checked back on her later and she was sitting upright again, where I had dropped the food. I was releived.

I check this morning and she's dead. In that same legs-stretched-out position, like she had another seizure, and did not recover from it.

I had a young tinctorius 2 years ago that died the same way (in a seperate container), but because it was young I thought it was just a bum frog. But this female was previously healthy.

Has anyone had any experience with this? I don't know what to do now, because I'm afraid the male frog may be a carrier of something and I don't want to jeopardize my remaining female frog.


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

there are folks who know a lot about herp medicine on this board, and i'm not one of them, but i noticed you are using herptivite. do you also use reptical with D3? if not, you should do a search for "calcium" here and you will find lots of info. the spasms are one common symptom of calcium deficiency. also, the suppliments break down over time, so if the suppliments are old it can cause problems.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2005)

Thanks for the quick reply. I notice that my container of Herptivite expired June 2004. I ordered a new jar immediately.

I have never used any other supplements. The breeder I bought them from never mentioned anything about it. I see it says on the jar, "Please mix with our supplement, Rep-Cal", which is confusing because the jar IS the Rep-Cal brand supplement. 

Is the word Rep-Cal a brand name or a product name? Or both?


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

hey,

to answer your question rep-cal is a different suppliment. the company does not pre-mix them due to some shelflife issue once they are mixed. you definitely need to use calcium, and be sure it's the pink label kind WITH D3.

again, i'm not an expert, but ed is. check out this link and focus on what ed suggests. the pertinant parts are toward the end of the thread.

http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10048


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Herptivite should be lacking in D3 (but does contain calcium) as when mixed in a complete supplement the fat soluable vitamins can increase their oxidative rate. Herptivite should be mixed with Rep-Cal so that the ratio between the level of vitamin A (provided mainly as betacarotene so oversupplementation is really not a concern) and D3 is about 100 to 1. Both of the supplements should be replaced every six months or so. 
In general if you are feeding daily, I would not recommend supplementing with a vitamin/mineral mix more frequently than every other feeding. 
Given that you were not using a D3 containing supplement, you can strongly suspect that there was a disruption of the calcium metabolism. 

Hope this helps. 

Ed 

PS: I do not consider myself an expert as there is still a lot to learn. 

Ed


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

The calcium levels listed on the herptivite jar are pretty low, only 2.2-2.3 % (min-max). So, lack of vit. D notwithstanding, the calcium is very lacking. 



Ed said:


> PS: I do not consider myself an expert as there is still a lot to learn.


But the rest of us do, comparatively speaking.


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## Guest (Sep 28, 2005)

Quick note...the calcium on my jar of Herptivite reads the calcium as being 4.4-4.6%.

I ordered a jar of the calc-D3 mixture as well.

Really hoping the fresh vitamins will keep this from happening to any of my other frogs! I have a family of leucs and an aurotania to worry about.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Fresh vitamins will go a long way to keeping this from happening again but when using Herptivite and Rep-Cal only mix as much as you need at that time (or no more than a week's worth and keep the mixture in a dry cool dark place to help keep the vitamins from breaking down so quickly. 

Ed


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