# Recommend quarantine procedures of all new aquisitions



## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

I know I'm still quite new to the hobby but I really feel that this subject isn't brought up enough to those who aren't in the "knowledgeable circles". I say knowledgeable circles as I know this is commonly beat to death and even fought over tooth and nail at group meets and between breeders. For me at least it seems far too common that those new to the community are simply overlooking this important step and dealing with the repercussions later down the road when it may be too late or at the very least more expensive. Could we possibly get a stickied discussion going on of what people are doing to ensure the health of their new acquisitions without it turning into personal attacks? The post on treatment of parasites is very helpful but I'd like a discussion focused solely on preventative measures that should or are being taken by those well rooted in the community. It seems to me not only from my own experience but from talking to others that a major portion of the frogs being sold have some sort of parasite burden or health concern that is simply being ignored or left to the purchaser to discover and deal with. What are everyones thoughts on this and what are you doing about it? If you wish not to participate in the discussion please take the time to vote in the poll so we can still get an idea of what people are doing.

I hope this post makes sense, I have a lot to say but I cant seem to get it out of my head and into coherent sentences. :roll:


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I suggest a minumum of 30 days quarantine for cb frogs and potentially 6 months or more for wc (depending). 

Cb frogs can be housed in temporary enclosures that are readily cleaned for the short period (for example using sphagnum moss as a substrate with some cuttings and hide areas) with the understanding that the furnishings will be discarded. 
Fecals should be run to at a minum determine the parasite load and action should be taken to resolve some serious parasites such as lungworms with other parasites being discussed with the vet (the reason is that some "parasites" are potentially not parasites such as pinworms in tortoises which aid in the digestion of plant matter by breaking it up).. 

As chytrid has been found at major importers of amphibians and people add cage furnishings, it should be checked as it can cause significant mortality particuarly in metamorphs. 

WC frogs (depending on species) may need to be set up in a more permanent set up until they acclimate but again fecal checks should be run on them to check out the parasite load at the minum and the furnishings of the enclosure should be discardable... Acclimation can take a long time as the frogs adapt to the stress of captivity. 
It would not be unreasonable to assume that all imported frogs have either been infected with or exposed to chytrid and testing is important. 


Ed


----------



## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Seeing as I was the only one that voted for option 'F' so far, my procedure is as follows;

All new frogs, regardless of source, go into sweater box type containers for a minimum of 2 months (usually more like 6). Boxes are furnished with paper towels, leaf litter, Pothos and sphagnum. Sometimes I halve plastic cups as temporary shelters. Boxes are cleaned every two weeks, with new substrate used after they are scrubbed with soap & hot water. During quarantine I run a minimum of 2 fecals and 2 PCR (Chytrid swab) tests. If all tests are clean, frogs can be put into permanent homes. I use separate FF dusting cups for each QT box, and I wear disposable polyethylene gloves that are changed before moving between boxes in the feeding rotation. If parasites are detected during QT, I treat accordingly, and clean the containers more frequently. After treatment is finished, I pretty much go back to step 1.

EVERYTHING that is going to be exposed to my frogs is sanitized in one way or another. Plants are soaked for 10 min in a 10% bleach solution (sometimes I use a bleach/white vinegar mix of 2 oz. each per gallon of water). After 10 minutes, the bleach water is dumped, and the plants are rinsed several times. I then let them soak in a tub overnight with tap water and dechlorinator. 

Leaves, soil, LECA, sphagnum and wood are all boiled for at least 30 minutes in a huge stock pot, and then baked dry in the oven. Usually I double the boiling time for wild-collected items. New tanks are scoured with a scotch-brite pad and soapy water, then rubbed down with 70% Isopropyl.

Keeping frogs this way is a lot more work than most people would be willing to endure, but I personally wouldn't be satisfied with less.


----------



## spydrmn12285 (Oct 24, 2006)

^wow, dane. I never knew you could put so much effort into an aspect of the hobby so overlooked. So I'm hoping you haven't had any sort of fatalities?


----------



## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

I really appreciate the input Ed/Dane. The more upfront we all are about this stuff the better. I really feel that most newcommers to the hobby dont realize its not just the frogs that can be affected by these parasites as they can be quite harmful to humans and other animals in the house. I must say thought I'm pretty disappointed in the amount of people who have read this post and not even anonymously participated in the poll. Is this subject so Taboo?


----------



## jundox (Jul 5, 2007)

Well I voted for no quarantine... I'll explain:

I've read a lot of usefull information on here, and this subject has been somewhat contradictory... In one breath, most people say to quarantine for observation purposes- yet in an other breath, people talk about the stress of transfering frogs between homes. 

What I've come up with is, if they are your first frogs in a small basic vivarium, a temp enclosure is unneccesary provided you can still monitor them as adequately as if they were in a temporary home. If the frogs are additions to your collection or the enclosure is too large to properly monitor feeding, I'd suggest a temp home. 

Anyways, I figured I'd answer the poll even though I am obviously brand new to this hobby. I'm sure people still feel that a temporary home would be beneficial regardless, but I'd rather not stress the frogs further especially considering my vivarium is already VERY simple and not much different than a temp home would be. 

All that said, if I had frogs that did well in groups and wanted more of them, I would most definately quarantine the newcomers and do fecals as well.


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

One of the reasons placing them into permanent enclosures is a problem is due to parasites that can directly infect the frogs such as lungworms. These parasites are not only contagious to other frogs (as they have a free living reproductive form as well as a parasitic reproductive form) but can readily colonize new enclosures (and thus other frogs) through contamination (transfer of cage furnishings, wet hands, tools (such as scissors used in more than one cage) and infect the frogs. When dealing the permanent setups that have become infected, this requires a total gutting and disinfection of the set-up as part of dealing with the infection. 
Depending on how the enclosure was set up may require disposing of the entire enclosure except for any external equipment. 

Observation is only part of the issue when dealing with quarantine... Fecal checks are probably one of the most important aspects of quarantine but are often not performed.... It is important to know what the frog has to determine how you are going to deal with it.... 


Now there are exceptions to this rule such as wild caught frogs that are known to be sensitive to stress (such as some atelopids) but again these can often be dealt with in a simple planted enclosure until they are stable. 


Ed


----------



## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

I have become a fan of the larger clear Sterlite plastic bins available at WalMart and such places as quarantine containers, they can be had in just about any size you need up to ones that are around the size of a 20L, which should be plenty of space to set up a temporary habitat for the more sensitive WC frogs, I had a lot more trouble with using the smaller 196 oz containers than I have with the larger Sterlite bins, which are readily cleaned out when the time comes.


----------



## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

I was going to wait until returning from NWFF to mention anything about this but the Amphibian Steward Network Procedures and Guidelines are now available for download on TWI site and there is a section on Quarantine. But I will tell you straight up front that this is the biggest hurdle we run up against. Our cop out was to adopt preliminary guidelines outlined in (included in the handbook):

Zippel, K., R. Lacy, and O. Byers (eds.) 2006. CBSG/WAZA Amphibian Ex Situ Conservation Planning Workshop Final Report. IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, Apple Valley, MN 55124, USA.

But even most zoos wouldn't be able to meet the most rigorous quarantine guidelines in that report.

Ideally, quarantine should be done in a different room, or even building, than your main collection. Routines need to be performed to minimize the possibility of transfering disease from one tank to another. Quarantine does no good if the quarantine container sits near other tanks and/or the keeper isn't careful to disinfect hands and equipment between vivs - always servicing quarantine tanks last.

There have always been two camps regarding sterility of setups. I'm definately in the dirty camp but that doesn't mean that I think people who sterilize everything that goes into a viv are wrong. There is a trade-off between the two methods. If you carefully sterilize/disinfect everything in a viv, you have the lowest chance of introducing anything nasty into the environment. It raises confidence and control. But sterilization also destroys all of the good microbes and critters which make up the majority of life in a vivarium. For me, absolute confidence simply isn't worth the sacrifice. A planted vivarium is a mini-ecoystem and ecosystems are more stable if they contain a greater diversity of life. So I opt more for a risk management approach with rigorous quarantine of new arrivals (actually, I just limit the arrivals to almost zero) and trying to be careful about where I collect materials for the vivs.

The other trade-off was already mentioned which is stress. It's probably safe to say that stress has killed as many, or more, frogs in captivity as disease. But there are ways to quarantine and still minimize stress. I've personally had a lot of problems in the past with setups using paper toweling. Even cleaning the setups weekly and changing the toweling resulted in a lot of bacterial growth and frog losses. In addition, I didn't like the stress that moving the frogs every week placed on them. So now I quarantine in fairly roomy setups with a good substrate like sphagnum or clay with a few plants and plenty of leaf litter. They are still easy to tear down and scrub when needed but provide all the comforts of a permanent vivarium.

But one thing we aren't talking about is reverse quarantine - or how we protect the environment. How we dispose of waste water and material from our vivs, influences the likelihood that a disease brought into our collection gets passed out into the environment. Chytrid comes to mind.

Bottom line is that quarantine is very important and many entire collections have been wiped out for failure to recognize its importance. But I think quarantine can be done in either simple or extravent enclosures so long as the quarantine is sufficiently isolated from other tanks in the collection, you can get clean fecals from it, and you understand you may have a huge chore in front of you if a nasty infection is found in an extravagent setup.


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

bbrock said:


> There have always been two camps regarding sterility of setups. I'm definately in the dirty camp but that doesn't mean that I think people who sterilize everything that goes into a viv are wrong. There is a trade-off between the two methods. If you carefully sterilize/disinfect everything in a viv, you have the lowest chance of introducing anything nasty into the environment. It raises confidence and control. But sterilization also destroys all of the good microbes and critters which make up the majority of life in a vivarium. For me, absolute confidence simply isn't worth the sacrifice. A planted vivarium is a mini-ecoystem and ecosystems are more stable if they contain a greater diversity of life. So I opt more for a risk management approach with rigorous quarantine of new arrivals (actually, I just limit the arrivals to almost zero) and trying to be careful about where I collect materials for the vivs.



There are ways around the total sterile approach that doesn't place the new group at risk. The samples can be set up into another enclosure and allowed to establish there. This can then be checked for the presence of pathogens of concern and if clear used to see/inoculate new enclosures. (this isn't an ideal example due to the fertilizer added but there are products out there that contain these microbes (see http://gropower.com/product_pages/gp_plus_wm.htm) that can be used to inoculate other enclosures to grow populations for inoculation into the terraria. 




bbrock said:


> snip " But there are ways to quarantine and still minimize stress. I've personally had a lot of problems in the past with setups using paper toweling. Even cleaning the setups weekly and changing the toweling resulted in a lot of bacterial growth and frog losses. "endsnip .


Just a comment here on the bacterial growth.... the bacterial growth isn't a bad thing.. in the paper towel setups there are no bacteria to convert the waste from ammonia to nitrate and scrubbing or really wiping down the plastic on these containers prevents these bacteria from ever establishing themselves and breaking down the wastes increasing the stress on the frogs via ammonia and nitrite poisoning. When using paper towels, unless there is a death or documented pathogen the towel should be removed and the rest of the container simply rinsed out. If there are fecals or dead insects stuck to the plastic those localized areas can be scrubbed with some paper towel to remove the materials. However you can get problems with infections if when feeding the frogs, large amounts of vitamin-mineral powder and/or insects are allowed to get trapped/caught up in the paper towels as this provides a large nutrient source for potential pathnogenic microbes like Aeromonas. 



bbrock said:


> snip "In addition, I didn't like the stress that moving the frogs every week placed on them. So now I quarantine in fairly roomy setups with a good substrate like sphagnum or clay with a few plants and plenty of leaf litter. They are still easy to tear down and scrub when needed but provide all the comforts of a permanent vivarium."endsnip .


Until a amphibian shows up with a pathogen, this is how we do it at work. The amphibians are shifted to a paper towel substrate to allow for clean fecal collection and the whole enclosure is stripped down between treatments. 



bbrock said:


> snip "But one thing we aren't talking about is reverse quarantine - or how we protect the environment. How we dispose of waste water and material from our vivs, influences the likelihood that a disease brought into our collection gets passed out into the environment. Chytrid comes to mind."endsnip .


Iridioviruses are another one that have been showing up in novels locations (such as those carried by tiger salamanders in the bait and pet trade). At home I collect the water from the tanks, add bleach to it, let sit and then after 24 hours, neutralize the bleach with some sodium thiosulphate.

Ed


----------



## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Ed said:


> There are ways around the total sterile approach that doesn't place the new group at risk. The samples can be set up into another enclosure and allowed to establish there. This can then be checked for the presence of pathogens of concern and if clear used to see/inoculate new enclosures. (this isn't an ideal example due to the fertilizer added but there are products out there that contain these microbes (see http://gropower.com/product_pages/gp_plus_wm.htm) that can be used to inoculate other enclosures to grow populations for inoculation into the terraria.
> Ed


Adding probiotics is only a partial solution to what I'm talking about. Soil ecology is in its infancy and the list of beneficial interactions being discovered continues to grow. To date, we do not know all of the "ingredients" to make an artificial ecosystem behave as good as a natural one. So when we add only the critters that we know provide beneficial services, we are leaving out an enormous amount of beneficial services that we don't know. For example, nematodes that are plant parasites, plant viruses, and plant bacterial disease have been discovered to be major drivers for maintaining biodiversity in natural ecosystems. Yes, they are bad if they hit a monoculture of plants, but in the wild they serve to make sure that no one species completely dominates an area - and thus provide a greater diversity of niches for a greater diversity of life. Good and bad take on a whole new context in naturally functioning ecosystems so we may never be able to match nature by assembling chosen parts. So there will likely always be that trade-off between carefully controlling everything that goes into a viv, vs. shotgunning diversity into the viv and letting it self organize.


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Brent,

That was an example of something people could try, in a wider view I was trying to say (and I guess not doing it well) that they could always set up a seeder tank with materials and let that run in. Once it is run in (say 8 months to a year), they it could be checked for some of the pathogens (it would be pointless to test for Aeromonads or Mycobateria as they will be there regardless) but it may be of value to test for Rhabdias... 

Ed


----------



## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

> It's probably safe to say that stress has killed as many, or more, frogs in captivity as disease.


I'll second this. Something that we forget a lot of times is that frogs have very functional immune systems! If conditions are relatively stress free (population levels low, well planted vivaria, well fed animal), their immune system should be able to handle the majority of 'bugs' that they are exposed to.
Creating a 'sterile' enclosure is very improbable (even in laboratory conditions). Bleaching out the enclosure and using paper towel only substrate will be sterile-ish until you put an animal in there. Cutaneous bacteria, intestinal bacteria/protists/whatever will be detectable on almost every surface in the enclosure within 24 hrs.
I realize our goal is to eliminate the pathogenic ones, however, I personally feel that having a well planted, well established enclosure prepared before adding the frogs then adding the individuals and providing plenty of food (of a diverse variety) will be better for the frog than putting it in a 'sterile' environment for monitoring unless it falls into a very specific set of circumstances which most enthusiasts don't encounter.
I hope this helps!
~B


----------



## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Ed said:


> Hi Brent,
> 
> That was an example of something people could try, in a wider view I was trying to say (and I guess not doing it well) that they could always set up a seeder tank with materials and let that run in. Once it is run in (say 8 months to a year), they it could be checked for some of the pathogens (it would be pointless to test for Aeromonads or Mycobateria as they will be there regardless) but it may be of value to test for Rhabdias...
> 
> Ed


Yeah, I thought of that after I hit send. The concept is valid and would probably be very beneficial.

What list of diseases/parasites would you screen for?


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The big ones off the top of my head I would screen for would be lungworms and any other parasite that had an free living reproductive stage. 

Most of the bacteria and fungal diseases are not worth screening soil for as most of the ones that cause disease in amphibians are opportunistics. 

I would also consider pulling some of the substrate and exposing a sensitive anuran to it and after 5-6 days at 70-72 F take a swab to test for chytrid (as we are still not sure how long it can persist in the enviroment).

Again this is off the top of my head. 

Ed


----------

