Immediate help required please    9/20/09
Hi please please please can you help me
<Will try.>
I have 4 albino ACF and 1 brown oldest albino is 4 1/2 yrs next is 3 then others are 2 1/2
<Sounds like you must have the basics covered if they've lived this long already.>
Anyway about a week ago I noticed that one of my pleco`s had died 4 days later I noticed that the eldest froggie had started to shed her skin like mad (constant as soon as one layer had peeled another started to peel)
<It is normal for Xenopus to shed little bits of skin now and again. But if they shed a lot of skin all at once, that's usually a sign of environmental stress. Since Xenopus are subtropical animals, they shouldn't be in tropical tanks with Plecs anyway, so that was at least one mistake. Plecs also produce a lot of waste, and in tanks less than 55 gallons, can create very poor water conditions. As the catfish grows, it puts more and more strain on the filter, and the aquarium becomes less and less able to dilute ammonia and nitrite in the water. Eventually there's a threshold point where the Plec is so big and so messy the tank goes from being dirty to outright toxic, and animals start to die. Unless your tank is more than 55 gallons in size, then very likely this is the key problem. Review tank size, water quality, and the turnover rate of the filter. For a Plec, you'd need a filter rated around 8 times the volume of the tank in turnover per hour, i.e., for a 55 gallon tank, you'd need a filter rated at 440 gallons per hour.>
Due to this I started to notice that I could see her wee bones in her fingers and toes also she had gotten very lethargic during this time all the other albinos seemed as if they were desperate to escape the tank climbing on the filter and a platform trying to get out of the water
<Both, surely, good signs that water quality was very bad. Have you done a nitrite test? The decaying skin tissue is a prime sign of what we call Red Leg, and this can only be treated with antibiotics (as well as, of course, correcting whatever environmental stress there was in the aquarium). You will either get antibiotics from a pet store, ideally one catering to reptiles and amphibians (in the US), or from a vet (in most of the rest of the world). Do read here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWsubwebindex/FrogsArtNeale.htm
It's almost certainly the case you'll need to move the frogs to a clean, well-filtered tank with 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, and then treat them with a suitable antibiotic.>
I done a 50% water change using gravel filter as always I used aqua safe to remove chlorine. I also treated with melafix
<Largely useless, and certainly not a cure in this instance.>
The next day I saw a massive improvement the others had stopped trying to get out of the tank and my big girl (zebedi) had stopped shedding she still had her open wounds
<Melafix is a mild antiseptic. Also you have to remember that with the catfish dead, the pollution in the aquarium will have dropped considerably.
So these two factors can result in a (likely temporary) easing of symptoms.>
So kept on checking her 3 days later she started to act weird again along with another female so following advice from pet shop I gave them a salt bath for 1 hr each night for 2 nights
<Why? What made you think salt would help a bacterial infection?>
Again they picked up then on Fri I noticed that again they kept trying to get out of tank as if they were running from the water then zebedi again started shedding like mad so this time I removed all ornaments from tank air tubes and 80% of water I added some fresh water but am keeping the level low so they can reach surface easy
<You're doing a lot of stuff, but very little logically. Have you done any water tests yet? That's the place to start: Why are these animals sick?
What diseases cause these types of symptoms?>
Today Zebedee is looking a Little better why does this keep happening
<Almost certainly chronically poor conditions. Review aquarium size, filtration, water quality.>
I am changing water regularly I feed them a mixed diet of prawns, worms, slivers of trout (they love these) squid and wax worms they hate blood worms.
<Fine.>
My Pleco does not seem affected nor does my brown ACF for some strange reason she is 3 yrs and is what I call disabled he is about a third the size of her albino sisters she is defiantly not a dwarf. Please please help me they are in a 45 gallon tank
<Too small for 2 Plecs and multiple Xenopus frogs. Wrong temperature for one or other species, as well. While likely not something that would kill your frogs, the wrong temperature will make them more prone to trouble should something go wrong. Xenopus like fairly cool conditions, and an unheated tank is generally ideal in centrally-heated homes.>
with fine stones wooden log and bridge Zebedee is a tough frog and has survived numerous escapes over the yrs although tank is covered and all holes blocked I can not bear anything to happen to her please please please help me I have used Ur
<...your...>
site many times before for help but couldn't find answers to help me here
PS I also tried this Mardel Maracyn Plus thanking you mega much in advance
<Julie, since this is an emergency, I've replied back to your message, having fixed the lack of grammar, punctuation, and capitalisation. But please, "proper English" is our currency here, and we usually bounce back messages that aren't in reasonably good English. It's not a lot to ask. By writing more carefully, you're not only helping us help you, you're making it easier for others to read this message on the web site.>
Julie
<Cheers, Neale>

Albino African Clawed Frog swimming upside-down - 07/13/08
I have three African Clawed Frogs in a 29 gallon tank. They share the space with two spotted Rafael's. In the last two weeks my Albino ACF started acting weird and started swimming a little weird. I was away on vacation for the last week and changed 1/3rd the tanks water before leaving. Upon coming home I found my Albino friend upside-down on the bottom of the tank. I grabbed a net to take what I thought was my dead frog out of the tank only to find that my frog was very much alive.
<Well that's good news at least. In any event, your first stop here would be to test the water, at minimum the nitrite level. Almost all "sudden disasters" in aquaria come down to water quality, and if you've been away, there's every possibility that something went wrong in this regard, and the livestock got sick. I'll put aside for now my general observation that fish and amphibians don't mix.>
Watching her over the last day I see that she still has a lot of energy and a very strong kick, but she has trouble swimming right-side up.
<Not really a symptom of any one thing.>
My frog spends a lot of time in the corner wedged between a gravel filter tube and the side of the tank. I'm thinking she is doing this so as to breath air without trying to figure out which way is up. I also sometimes still find her upside-down on the aquarium bottom. I'm pretty sure she is not eating her regular diet of live crickets and recently added
freeze-dried tube worms (with no luck either.)
<Do remember that these animals won't thrive on a single food item. Frozen bloodworms and live earthworms would both make excellent additions to the diet of these frogs. Freeze-dried foods are, in my opinion, a waste of money. Moreover, not all animals eat them (and none of mine ever seemed to enjoy them).>
The other two ACFs, a male and a female, both seem fine, as do the spotted Rafael's. The only major tank change I made before heading out on vacation was taking old plants that looked like they were dying, and replaced them with new ones. (The kind of live plants that come in a plastic container with a gelatin in the roots that keeps them alive for a while.
<Never seen these. Must be something particular to your country. In any case, being protein-based, gelatin decays under water and adds to the nitrogenous wastes in the system. Could very easily have caused an ammonia/nitrite crisis in your absence.>
These plants have not shared space with any other water animals.) I have two filters running. The pH is often high and I find I am regularly using pH Down to bring the pH level more in line with where it should be.
<Arggghhh!!! Lesson #1 - Don't change the pH unless you also change the hardness. One of the most common mistakes inexperienced aquarists make is to assume that a fish "wants" a certain pH. They do not. Fish don't really care about the pH. What they need is for the pH to be stable. Beyond that, most freshwater species will adapt to anything within the range pH 6-8. What fish DO care about is hardness. So when you have an Amazonian fish and you read it comes from "soft, acidic water", that means your job is to reduce the hardness. Do that, and the pH will go down by itself (sort of, anyway). Change the pH using buffering potions without changing the hardness and all you're doing is creating an unstable environment. No fish wants to live in hard but acidic water overloaded with buffering agents. Blech! If your water is hard and alkaline (basic), then don't worry, you're fish don't care. I think the reason inexperienced aquarists change the pH is because it seems easy to do, especially when compared with softening water using rainwater or an RO filter. But that easiness is illusory! By the same token, this is why so-called soft water from a domestic water softener is bad for fishkeeping -- it's chemical composition is all wrong for most fish, despite the fact it is called "soft water" and so sounds like the stuff you get in the Amazon. It most certainly IS NOT like the stuff in the Amazon!>
I also changed another 1/3rd of the water in the tank yesterday just in case.
<Change more. After a crisis, change 50% immediately, and then another 50% 6-12 hours later.>
My Albino friend is about 2 years old and does not have any skin problems, bloatedness, or red anywhere on its body. I've also heard that female frogs sometimes swim upside-down before laying eggs, but I don't think this is the issue. Do you have any suggestions as to what the problem is and how I can help my small friend?
<Almost certainly either water quality or water chemistry issues. Check these and act accordingly. My prediction would be that if you [a] stopped feeding for a few days and [b] did dechlorinated tap water changes to remove all traces of the pH buffer, the aquarium would quickly settle down. Use your test kits to check this.>
I'm also heading away again for a number of days and could bring a separate small aquarium with me to monitor any progress but am wondering if it's best to leave her be. Thank you for any insights.
<Hope this helps, Neale.>

Ingested Pebbles in The Stomach, ACF sys., beh.   3/14/08
Hello,
I have adopted 2 African Clawed frogs last Winter. They are doing  fine, except I noticed one of the frogs has ingested some of the pebbles on the bottom of the tank.
<Does happen...>
The other frog seems
to avoid ingestion . They are both eating well.
I noticed this belly full of pebbles months ago. At first I thought she was pregnant.
The other day I put them in the tub for some playtime & extra room as I cleaned out their tank. I saw that the frog with the pebbles had expelled some of them! Oh how great I thought.
Perhaps it is the extra exercise. I repeated this procedure of putting her in the tub , and again she expelled more pebbles. As I write this I have her in the tub, she has expelled another pebble.
Is this the only way to do this without taking her to a animal clinic. Can she live with the pebbles in her stomach if they are not expelled? She seems quite happy & otherwise healthy.
<Mmm, I'm concerned that the pellets might get "too far" down the digestive tract for expulsion... causing a gut blockage problem... I would not try a laxative, other measure>
Oh, I have since taken all the pebbles out and replaced them with much larger stones.
<Ah, good>
Thank you.
Having a new appreciation for frogs, Sherry
<I do have hopes for the continuation of Amphibians on our planet... many are going... due to too fast changes in environments, pollutants of various sorts... Bob Fenner>