# Lost an azereus last night



## Murph1908 (Apr 25, 2007)

Hi all.

I am new to the hobby. I set up my terrarium a few months back (29 gal), and got my frogs from Black Jungle a month ago (three azereus).

I had been feeding them melanogaster. When I first started, I placed an orange wedge in one corner to attract them, as I had read on one of the sites. I did this for about 10 days, until I became concerned that the froglets weren't making it over to the orange to find them. I had a lot of dead, uneaten flies.

I began dropping the dusted flies near each of the frog's favored hangouts. All three would come out and dine, and it seemed to be working well.

I was concerned with one frog's occasional difficulty in landing a fly. His miss rate with his tongue seemed higher than the others.

Last week, one frog was noticeably larger than the other 2. During feedings, he would jump out and nail flies one after the other with few misses. The frog of concern wasn't as mobile in his hunt, and was still missing a lot. Sometimes, he'd hit, but just push the fly away another inch. He was also not sitting up well on his front legs, which I also read was a bad sign.

Last night at feeding time, I found him sprawled out and dessicated on some moss.

During this feeding, the big guy did his usual active hunt, picking off flies like Doc Holiday. 

Frog 3, who is smaller (but not as small as the one that died) was not as active, and seemed almost disinterested in the flies. Though I did see him later ranging around a bit.

Any tips on helping the little one avoid the same fate as his tankmate? He is still strong on his front legs, but compared to the big one, he's not thriving as much. He eats, but doesn't take as much of an interest in it. That's the best way I can describe it. I am concerned he is starting down the same path as the one I lost.

Potentially useless information:
29 gallon tank
2 watering spots, one on each side
90-92 average humidity
75-76 average temp on one side of the tank, with heat focused on that end.
Room temperature the past few weeks has been low 70's.
The orange wedge (when it was used) was placed in the front left corner - the big guy's hangout has always been the back left corner. 

Thanks to everyone for all I have learned on the boards so far, and for any assistance to come.


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## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

The first question should be what were the results of the fecal tests when you first purchased them. There's a very good chance they may have had parasites that after being untreated for a month put too much stress on the frogs.


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## PDFanatic (Mar 3, 2007)

Possibly sounds like a high temperature issue. It could be a number of things, give us some details about the setup, temp, humidity etc.


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## spydrmn12285 (Oct 24, 2006)

how old are the frogs? Maybe they're just now becoming adults and the frogs are stressing each other out. I'd take out the weaker frog and put it in a temp container so that it can gain some weight.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Fecals, Fecals, Fecals...... what is it with everyone having a poop fixation? He didn't do anything wrong with not having fecals run! 

Most beginner issues are not related to what is inside the frog, but to husbandry issues. 

Since the user had the frogs for 1 month, he was already past the stress related to shipping and any health concerns of the animals. Issues - related to the breeder are more than likely going to happen within the first 2 weeks of getting the animals. 

I think a better approach might be to look into your setup more. Can you provide a picture of your setup and answer some of the following questions?


Do you have a drainage layer in the tank?
If so, what is it made of?
You mention you have a hotter end with 'heat focused'? Can you explain this?
What kind of substrate did you use?
Are you dusting your fruitflies? Frequency?
What supplements are you using?
What is the temperate of the room you are keeping the frogs in?
What type of lid do you have?
How often are you misting your animals?

Let's start with these questions and see where the answers lead.

Melis






bellerophon said:


> The first question should be what were the results of the fecal tests when you first purchased them. There's a very good chance they may have had parasites that after being untreated for a month put too much stress on the frogs.


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## Murph1908 (Apr 25, 2007)

Thanks Melis

No pictures available at the moment, as I am writing from work, and my design is an embarrassment compared to others on the board =), but here's the info:

I have a 29 gallon tank. There is a terra-lite drainage substrate of about an inch and a half, topped with the nylon screen and about an inch to 2 inches of coco fiber.

I read a temperature gradient is desirable, so I have a heat pad affixed to the outside of the tank on the left side. It is on a thermostat, with the sensor in the back left corner of the tank. The thermostat is set at about 76-77 (analog). My thermometer/hydrometer is close to the thermostat sensor, and consistently shows temperatures between 75 and 77, and humidities of 89-92. The memory feature of this thermometer confirms no recent extremes in either condition.

I mist the tank with a spray bottle 2 to 3 times per week. Additional misting didn't seem necessary, as my humidity has been maintained.

I have a glass top with a removable plastic edge. The glass covers 80% of the top of the tank, and the plastic is designed to cover the other 20%. I have it set up in a way that there is about 10% (half the plastic's 20%) open for ventilation. 

I feed daily, and dust the melanogaster daily with herpivite and rep-cal. When I was gone for 3 days last week, my wife fed them hydei from PetCo, because my first attempt at culturing melanogaster grew mold (no flies from this moldy culture ever made it out of the container). She did not dust, but I resumed dusting upon my return with 2 fresh cultures from Black Jungle.

The ambient temperature of the room has been in the low to upper 70's over the past several weeks.

Other info-
For several weeks, the two smaller frogs would "hang out by the pool", and sit in or on the edge of the large, flat water dish. The larger frog hung out on the other side (warm side) of the tank. The two smaller frogs seemed to get along well, as I never witnessed any aggression, and they were often sitting together peacefully.

Thanks again for the help.


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## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

Ouch melissa! I didn't mean to sound judgmental but I was rather speaking from my own experience. A few months back I purchased three Azureus from a prominent breeder and had very similar results at Murph, losing one and almost a second if I hadn't acted quickly. It sounds like husbandry is being handled quite well (not a fan of the heat pad though, but if its needed). The reason I'm stressing a fecal test is that if it is a pathogenic problem then action needs to be taken immediately to insure the health of the remaining frogs. You really cant give any definitive answer as to what is wrong without having all the information needed and I'd say the general health of the frogs is a major part of the pie.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Regardless if a frog has bugs or not, getting the husbandry correct is the most important step. 

Frogs can live with many 'nasties' for a long time. Not that it is a good thing, but usually what causes problems with any animal is stress. 

Stress can be caused by many things:
1. Improper husbandry
2. shipping
3. Adding a new frog to a tank
4. having a dominat frog in the tank. 

Stress, will exasberate any 'nasties' existing in their systems. It has been my personal experience, that stress related deaths usually occur within 2 weeks of the event. 

Since he has had the frogs for 4 weeks, the stress enduced problems are probably over.

From your descriptions, it sounds like you have a bully in your tank. I would remove the smaller of the two frogs and place him in a temporary containers. 

I would also do some additional checking of the temperatures in your tanks. Turn off the heater you are using, and get some temperatures. Do you have an overhead floursent light?

The topic of fecals and treatment of frogs came up a lot at IAD. While everyone agreed there is a time and place for treating sick animals, the concensous was - husbandry needs to be taken care of first. 

One last thing, is contact the people you purchased the frogs from. I hope you have been in contact with them since you first noticed issues with the frog - but if you haven't, you still need to contact them. 

Let's make sure there isn't a husbandry issue first, then if everything is correct, maybe a fecal should be run. But, fecals are subjective. Not every piece of do do is going to have nasties in it.

Melis







bellerophon said:


> Ouch melissa! I didn't mean to sound judgmental but I was rather speaking from my own experience. A few months back I purchased three Azureus from a prominent breeder and had very similar results at Murph, losing one and almost a second if I hadn't acted quickly. It sounds like husbandry is being handled quite well (not a fan of the heat pad though, but if its needed). The reason I'm stressing a fecal test is that if it is a pathogenic problem then action needs to be taken immediately to insure the health of the remaining frogs. You really cant give any definitive answer as to what is wrong without having all the information needed and I'd say the general health of the frogs is a major part of the pie.


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## Stavros (Apr 9, 2007)

I too recently acquired a pair of azureus from a reputably breeder, however I got a sexed pair to reduce territorial issues. The male would miss often, and it worried me, but it seems that he is very accurate now and doing better feeding. It must have been that his eyesight or reflexes must have been stunted or strained during shipping and new tank introduction, and his hunting sucked at first. But it is very important to observe feeding behavior and whatnot with tincs and azureus. Here is more info copy and pasted from saurian.net



> Many of my customers buy these frogs as beginner or starter dart frogs, and in many ways, I can't recommend them enough, they are incredibly beautiful, and are among the boldest of dart frogs. They are also generally large frogs, which is great for display purposes. But there is one complexity which always leads me to caution the beginner who wants to try these frogs, and that is that they don't typically do well in groups, and many a beginner has started with three or four of these frogs in a twenty gallon tank, only to have them crash one by one, or have one or more not do well.
> 
> Unfortunately many beginners are not aware of the fact that even as juveniles these frogs can be so territorial that keeping two or three together can lead to the death of a frog. While juveniles will generally not show any outward “fighting” they can intimidate their tankmates through other subtle ways, resulting in the losing frog doing poorly. Animals of breeding age will sometimes fight almost continuously until the subordinate frog dies. In the case of the breeding age animals, the typical scenario is to have a female attacking another female, most often if there is a male present in the tank. After hearing all this, you may be wondering if you should move on to another type of dart frog entirely, but there are ways to deal with these problems, and still end up with some nice fat healthy adult tinctorius or azureus.
> 
> ...


There rest is here.

http://www.saurian.net/htm05/froginfo_tinc_azureus.html


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## Murph1908 (Apr 25, 2007)

Thanks to everyone for the info. 

It difference between the hunting of the 2 frogs is really amazing. The big one is picking them off the glass, off plants, and literally pouncing on them. The smaller one almost needs a fly to walk right past him. I placed an orange wedge near the little one's hangout to attract flies to his area while I prepare a temporary home for him.

I do have a fluorescent light. Repti-glo by Hagen, as suggested by Black Jungle. It doesn't produce a lot of heat at all. I moved the thermometer to the small guy's end of the cage, to see if lethargy is being caused by hypothermia. But that shouldn't be the case, as the room temperature in the house has been in the 70's consistently. 

Thanks all.


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## jundox (Jul 5, 2007)

I actually just lost an Azureus last night!!!
I've had them for over a month now, and was surprised to see one sprawled out in the center when I got home.

The other one is noticibly more aggressive and slightly larger now even though they were identical when I bought them... and I'm hoping that that was the cause for the loss. 

I'm trying to keep a close eye on the live one now, but I don't want to prematurely relocate it and subject it to further stress if nothing is wrong. I'd hate to lose this one too.


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

sorry if you answered this and i just didn't see it but, what are the ages of your frogs? i've had azureus that were stressed out and acted similiarly to yours when they were 8 months old  , and lost a tinc from aggression and stress when he was only 4 months old  . especially if yours are over 6 months, or becoming bredding age, they are very prone to stress by a tankmate.


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