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Any suggestions about this disease?

erman

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Any suggestions what this could be:

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micstarz

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If you start seeing redness in the legs, separate your frog from the others, euthanize it, and sterilize all your equipment. The disease in such a case is redleg, which is contagious and extremely difficult to treat. Recoveries are rare.
 

kittyb

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The blotching around the stomach/legs is most likely due to Aeromonas hydrophila (Red Leg). I'd recommend euthanasia, as I've never had a frog recover once the damage was that apparent (as it's actually a systemic infection and not limited to the skin, but also the organs and blood).

We've had some success treating the surviving frogs (those without symptoms, but from the same tank) with 20 mg/L chloramphenicol in a 0.5% saline bath, changed every 24 hours for 5-7 days. We haven't had the opportunity to attempt to treat a symptomatic frog, but I have gotten the impression that they rarely survive once the infection has reached that point.

In addition to antibiotic treatment, we've also thoroughly cleaned out the tanks, replaced the water and used Koizyme (for our circulating systems). This seems to be significantly reducing the number of ill frogs.

Good luck!
 

micstarz

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The blotching around the stomach/legs is most likely due to Aeromonas hydrophila (Red Leg). I'd recommend euthanasia, as I've never had a frog recover once the damage was that apparent (as it's actually a systemic infection and not limited to the skin, but also the organs and blood).

We've had some success treating the surviving frogs (those without symptoms, but from the same tank) with 20 mg/L chloramphenicol in a 0.5% saline bath, changed every 24 hours for 5-7 days. We haven't had the opportunity to attempt to treat a symptomatic frog, but I have gotten the impression that they rarely survive once the infection has reached that point.

In addition to antibiotic treatment, we've also thoroughly cleaned out the tanks, replaced the water and used Koizyme (for our circulating systems). This seems to be significantly reducing the number of ill frogs.

Good luck!

+1, well said!
 

erman

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Thank you for the quick answers.
The frogs are still in a good condition, they eat well. The blotching had appeared couple of weeks ago and later disappeared after treatment with nifurpirinol. Two day ago I saw them again.
I begun treatment with chloramphenicol after kittyb's post. I use pharmaceutical capsules x250 mg which I open and put the powder directly into the tank. Is that the right way to apply the medicine?
I'm thinking on using sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, but I don't know the dosage
I usually use outside filtration with small stones and a sponge. Now I left only the sponge. The temperature of the water is 75 F.
 

kittyb

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I don't know if just dumping powder in the tank is as effective, though I haven't tried it. I put the small group of frogs (X. tropicalis, not X. laevis) in a pre-made solution (0.5 grams NaCl per liter of distilled water, and then 20 mg of antibiotic per liter made) in a container with no filtration and no additional light sources (because some antibiotics are sensitive to light). Obviously you'll probably need more than 1 liter of solution to house them. I used about 3 liters per large (full grown female) X. laevis. But putting them in a stagnant container made it easy to do a 100% water change every day with fresh antibiotic.
 

Jennewt

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It's generally better to apply treatments in a separate tank. They can ruin your biofilter (beneficial bacteria), and the medication itself may break down more rapidly in a tank that contains various organic material.
 

erman

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Happy New Year to all
Thanks for the advices but for me is highly unacceptable to euthanise a creature without trying to heal it. At least, that's what we were taught in Medical University :)
So, I made a real cocktail consisting of chloramphenicol (20 mg/L), trimeto/sulfa (480/80 for each 5 L), metronidazol (50 mg/L), nifurpirinol (28 mg/50 L) and malchite green (1,5 mg/L). I change the water every 24 h, no filtering, no lights. Today is day forth and all the frogs are clean, no blotching is observed. I will continue the treatment 7 days. The reason to apply so many different antibiotics is that I used some of them before and I'm not sure wheather resistance has developed. And I actually don't know what I fight.
 

John

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In future I would lay off the malachite green since it is much more toxic to amphibians than fish. I don't know the doses offhand for the others.
 

kittyb

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Glad to hear they're showing improvement! I understand not choosing to euthanize them, as they ARE pets and sometimes you just can't give up unless you try to help first. Either way, it sounds like their infection remained mild enough to fight off with the help of antibiotics, which is great. :D
 

erman

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Well, there are good news and bad news.
Most of the frogs recovered. There are still some pieces of skin shedding but I decided to stop the treatment. I changed the water, switched the lights on and added Sera Filter Biostart (enzymes and microbial flora).
And the sad news - the male frog was extremely weak and had refused to eat for over a month. I administered 5 mg enrofloxacin s.c. in the armpit area. So far so good. But after that I tried to inject 1 ml Aminosteril Hepa s.c. (aminoacid solution) and may be that was the mistake - the arm got spastic and after 2 hours I found the frog lying dead (I had to go out meanwhile). Later I read on the label that the osmotic pressure of the aminoacid solution was over 700 mosm/L and I think that was the reason for the lethal exit.
No more experiments. I contaminated the frogs adding new plants, now I killed one of them trying to make myself a vet. :(
No thank is not the same without the frog but at least I have the 8 froglets. Life goes on :(
 
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