Hey does any one know anything about frogs??? I got a albino I think african claw frog at walmart 8yrs ago ......He's never been sick....I live in a small town and the vet doesn't do frogs.......anyway the only changes were that I bought him a plant at walmart out of their fish tank and got a new filter system and changed his diet to include shrimp and blood worms that walmart sells.........anyway he was upside down in his tank and he looked like he was dying .......worked with him looked on line and it said if he looked swelled to poke him with a steril needle so we did some fluid did come out ....the problem is he can't seem to move his hind legs or swim....i talked to the pet shops here and they think the plant may have poisioned him or he ate some of it............any help would be appreciated........his name is sisco thank you

That's usually a "treatment" for dropsy, which your frog could possibly have if he's floating around like that. I don't suppose you could get any pics could you?

Dropsy is a symptom that's caused by a number of various ailments. It appears as swelling or bloating, and inhibits the frog's mobility. The swelling is due to an increase in intra-cellular fluid in the frog's organs, without an actual increase in cells inside the affected area. So basically your frog becomes a water balloon of lymph fluid.

Dropsy isn't a disease though, it's a symptom. Causes of dropsy can be bacterial/viral/or fungal infection, cancer, or parasites. My best guess is that the new plant you bought introduced some sort of bacteria or disease into your frog's habitat. Walmart fish tanks are riddled with dead and dying fish. If the dropsy came on pretty rapidly, it's probabablt bacterial.

Here's the bad news. Once you actually notice the dropsy, it's often too late to save the frog However, don't give up just yet. Terramycin is an antibacterial treatment used for fish, and may be effective in treating your frog. Increasing the water temperature up to 85 degrees F may possibly help. Another possible treatment to include involves adding epsom salt to the water (NOT table salt or aquarium salt). Numbers I've seen usually say to add around 1/8 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water, but you may want to try a slightly smaller amount to start. Keep in mind this is more an experimental treatment than anything, and is far more commonly used on goldfish than frogs. It's the best advice I've got, but if it doesn't work, 8 years isn't a bad run for the little guy...

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I appreciate your help..........we tried the 85 degree water and it made him mad......he took his front legs and flapped them and acted crazy......we put him in cooler water when he was a baby he's never had warm water......i'm supposet to get the antibotic friday we have one pet store in the next town that sells it and they are out of it and they ordered it and so that's what you get when you live in small country town.........we live in williamsburg, ky......i hope it helps.......last night he had some kind of real slimmy stuff comming off of him.....he has almost gotten his color back only one of his hind legs is alittle red now......i sure hope he gets better.....he's something else....we put gravel in his aquarium since he was a baby and if you don't feed him on time he kicks and throws the gravel on the tank until he's fed......lol......we just love him like crazy ......believe me he's had his last and I do mean last plant..........Thanks again.......oh yeah what kind of pets do you have?..........Thanks Debbie oh yes we did put in the epson salt.....

Try raising the temperature gradually instead of all at once. He's native to warm regions, so he should be able to tolerate it, he's just not used to it, lol.

Hmm, red legs is more a symptom of redleg than dropsy. I just wouldn't want you to wind up treating your frog for something he may not have. I don't know as much about red leg, aside from that it's pretty bad. I'll see what I can find though.

As for me, I have too many pets But not as many as I once had. I guess since I was asked, I can present a current pet list...

MAMMALS
0.2.0 fancy rats "domestic norway rats" (Rattus norvegicus)
2.3.0 fancy mice "domestic house mice" (Mus musculus)

REPTILES
0.1.0 Florida red-bellied turtle (Pseudemys nelsonii)
0.1.0 red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)
0.1.0 unknown side-necked turle (Pelusios sp.)
1.1.0 western plains garter snakes (Thamnophis radix haydenii)
0.1.0 Asian vine snake (Ahaetulla prasina)
0.0.1 black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta)
1.0.0 masked curlytail (Leiocephalus personatus)
0.1.0 yellow-throated plated lizard (Gerrhosaurus flavigularis)
0.1.0 regal girdled lizard (Cordylus regius)
0.1.0 tropical girdled lizard (Cordylus tropidosternum)
0.1.0 white-spotted wall gecko (Tarentola annularis)

AMPHIBIANS
1.0.0 blotched tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum melanostictum)
1.0.0 northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens)
1.0.0 southern leopard frog (Rana sphenocephala)
1.0.0 European green toad (Bufo viridis)
1.0.3 Oriental fire-bellied toads (Bombina orientalis)
1.0.0 Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis)
0.0.1 White's tree frog (Litoria caerulea)
1.0.0 tiger-legged monkey frog (Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis)
0.1.0 African clawed frog (Xenopus Laevis) "albino"
0.0.2 dwarf clawed frogs (Hymenochirus sp.)

FISH
0.0.1 shark catfish (Hexanematichthys seemanni/Arius seemanni)
0.0.2 three-spotted blue gouramis (Trichogaster trichopterus)
0.0.1 unknown plecostomus (family: Loricariidae)

ARACHNIDS
0.1.0 Chilean rosehair tarantula (Grammostola rosea)
0.1.0 zebra tarantula (Aphonopelma seemanni)
0.0.1 Usambara orange baboon (Pterinochilus murinus)
0.0.1 uknown baboon (Pterinochilus sp.)
0.0.1 Haplopelma longipes?
0.1.0 daring jumping spider (Phidippus audax) "red bryantae morph"
0.1.0 Egyptian deathstalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus)
1.1.0 Arizona bark scorpions (Centruroides exilicauda)
0.0.1 black-top desert hairy scorpion (Hadrurus spadix)
1.1.0 emperor scorpions (Pandinus imperator)
0.0.2 Walberg's burrowing scorpions (Ophistothalmus walberghi)
0.2.0 giant vinegaroons (Mastigoproctus giganteus)

INSECTS
1.0.0 Madagascan hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa)

CRUSTACEANS
0.0.1 unknown crayfish

CHILOPODS
0.0.1 unknown "Texas" centipede

MOLLUSKS
0.0.2 unknown land snails
0.0.2 giant leopard slugs (Limax maximus)

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hey there ......i just have one question.....how in this world do you afford to feed all these pets????? no I lied I have another question.....which one is your favorite and do you have names for all of them.......I bet it cost you alot of money for all these pets.......are you a vet or something??? where bouts are you from if its ok to ask......if your married how does she feel about all these different pets??????? Hey what in the world do scorpions eat?????? ok lied again.........lol........have any of them ever bitten you?????well I guess that's all the questions I can think of for now that is......lol.......yes im kinda nosey..........we will try warming sisco up sssslowly........lol.......what do you feed your frog???? Thanks again.....Debbie

LOL, ok...

1. Most of mine are pretty small and eat crickets that I order in bulk. It's cheaper that way. The snakes eat mice that I breed myself. The inverts and snakes only eat about once a week anyway. I also stockpile spare supplies that I get cheap, so I rarely have to front cash for a new enclosure or light fixture.

2. EVERYONE gets a name I don't think I could pick a very favorite, but I'm quite fond of my vine snake, Ivy, and my tiger salamander, Tiger, whom I've had for about 15 years.

3. If you add up the initial animal purchases, and the equipment, and the food, then yeah, it's probably a lot of $$. Thank God I hate math

4. I'm from North Dakota, but temporarily live in Maryland (NEVER move to Maryland). I'm not a vet, and I sure ain't married!

5. Scorpions eat smaller invertebrates for the most part, but will really eat anything small that they can overpower, whether it be a cricket, a smaller scorpion, or a tiny lizard. I feed mine crickets.

6. I've yet to be bitten or stung by anything venomous, save for bees and wasps (LOTS of wasps). I've retained nips from a wide variety of snakes, birds, lizards, mammals (especially rodents, lol), and even caiman. I've also been sprayed by acid from my vinegaroons and pinched by any number of scorpions and crustaceans. It's safe to say that I have scars, lol (prairie dogs bite hard!).

7. I feed my ACF gutloaded crickets for the most part. She gets that diet supplemented with frozen krill and zophobas (superworms). Every so often she gets live fish or baby mice. I avoid goldfish though. They're basically the junkfood of fishes. A diet high in goldfish is a diet poor in nutrition.

I really hope you're able to pull your frog through! It can't hurt to try, that's for sure. If he does indeed have redleg, this brief article may help:

http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/doctor/redleg.html

All I really know about redleg is what it looks like and that it's usually fatal, but it's still possible to treat.

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hey Matt.......hope your having a great day.....I looked at the red-leg and I hope it's not that.....so far sisco hasn't got any of those icky looking sores .......he's still hanging in there I've been so afraid he'd die before we could get the medicine for him.........I can't wait until tomorrow that's when I get the antiboitic for him........since your so smart you wouldn't just happen to know if the medicine works how fast we should see an improvement.......how often do we do the epson salt thing?????? lol hey when you do get married I suggest you pick a woman that loves and I do mean loves your crew of pets........I'm 42 and i've been married for 21yrs and its not a cinderella story.........i use to say it was cinderhella......lol.......you do have alot of good but there is usually alot of bad also......ok so your not rich...lol.....with that many animals I figured you was.......lol......hey don't get mad new friend.....i'm just honest and that is what I figured....i can't even pronounce half of those pets of yours.........lol...........If you don't like living there why don't you move? I bet north dakota is beautiful.....some parts of ky are north carolina and virigina are beautiful....I love the smokey Mts......have you ever been there????? Have you ever played the games on pogo??????? my mom loves them.......I like some of them pretty good....Hey do you even play any games? LOL...........Debbie

That is open to debate

Hmm, actually no, I have no idea how fast the meds will work, and there's really no guarantee that they will. This is a treatment used for treating fish normally, since they are also capable of contracting dropsy. Medications and treatment methods specific to amphibians are hard to come by. I know frogs and fish are still similar enough that the treatment methods used on the fish will often be effective on the frogs as well, I just don't know how quickly any results will start to show, or how great the results will be. It's all rather experimental.

As for the salt...hmm, I was thinking you just kinda left the salt in the water. Keep him on that 1/8 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water deal until he shows signs of improvement. It's a relatively weak solution from what I unedrstand, so it shouldn't be harmful. I'd test it and see how your frog reacts. If he reacts poorly, pull him out and go back to using fresh water. Adding Stress Coat or Reptisafe to the water could also help a little bit, and you ought to be treating the water with one of those anyway because standard tap water isn't very good for them.

Another treatment method I recently read up on mentions using brine salt. I have no idea if brine salt and epson salt are the same thing or not though. This method involves creating a "treatment tank" (which could just be a bucket too I suppose). In this tank add 4 tablespoons of brine salt for every one gallon of water. Put the frog in the brine water for between 2 and 4 minutes, and then take him out and put him back in his tank. Do this two or three times within a one hour period, and have three of these periods each day.

Personally, I'd be a bit hesitant to use this method. It's going to be very stressful on the frog, and all that stress could wind up doing more harm than good. Try the original method of combining epson salt and antibiotics first. If he doesn't start to show signs of improvement, then I'd go ahead and give the brine solution a try.

As for me, I've already got moving plans, ND's beauty is open to interpretation , and I don't really play many computer games, sorry

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I have nothing to contribute to your frogs health but North Dakota is a pretty boring state!

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My Photos

lol, you're just jealous cause we don't have all those mountains and trees to get in the way of our lovely.....horizons. Yeah...

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