# ADF with dying foot/leg?



## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

Not a fish, but I do keep two with my betta :-D I'm having a hard time finding the information I'm looking for so I figured I'd ask here since I've gotten so much help with my other fish problems. I have had two ADFs for about 8 months now in a 20 gal long (heated, filtered, planted) with a male betta. Both seem happy and healthy. While at the pet store today, I just had to go through the fish section and I saw they had ADFs in the same small tank as ACFs. I have no experience with ACFs but I was always told that they would eat ADFs, so I felt I had to take the two ADFs. They were skinny, but looked fine otherwise. The employee found a third ADF while trying to catch the two I had seen, so I took that one too. I have another 20 gal (heated and filtered) that is just housing plants and snails and figured I'd put them in there. I fed them before adding them to the tank, so I'm not sure if I just overlooked this or if this somehow happened in the 7 hours I've had them. One frog's foot is whitish, or lacking color. The webbing looks clamped and I noticed what is possibly the bone showing. For lack of a better description, it looks like the foot is dying. Higher up the leg, on the knee area, there's some type of growth that looks like it could be bacterial or fungal. The leg doesn't seem to move much when he swims around, but he is active and eating. Since I added them to the tank I've been watching them, so I don't think this happened since I've had him. My filter intake has a cover on it so their legs can't get sucked in. My gravel is very light, almost white, and I didn't notice the discoloration of his leg until he was floating at the top. I have separated him for now so that no diseases spread. (Excuse the food in the pictures, I fed him after I separated him to make sure he was still eating) I know that the frogs are very sensitive to many medications, but does anybody have some ideas of what this is and is there anything I can do about it?


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## Johnny579 (Aug 22, 2014)

I've seen this a lot lately on adfs at my big chain LFS. Its a fungus that will eat away at the leg and eventually kill the frog. Its contagious so I suggest QTing him immediately and starting treatment. Half doses of m blue should be ok. I've also had luck with api Pima fix on adfs with this. Its a more natural less stressful treatment than m blue.


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

In my experience with ADFs, whenever something has been wrong with them they usually die pretty quickly, so I thought this guy wouldn't last through the night, but he was hanging out looking pretty content when I checked on him this morning. I did notice what looked like the flesh of two toes, or possibly the two toes themselves, floating around in the water :-( Now that I'm home from work he seems to be even happier than earlier so I feel like I have to try something to help him. I found a thread with pictures that look similar to mine, but they amputated the foot and I wouldn't have any idea how to go about that, nor am I comfortable doing it. I've attached some pictures so you can see how rapidly the flesh is being destroyed, but it doesn't look like it's moved up the leg at all (yet).

Thanks for the suggestion Johnny. I have some Pimafix so I will give that a try.


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

Wow this is so strange, that is exactly what happened to my ADF (after I had had him for almost 2 months so I'm not sure I can say it was from the petstore but my tank was clean, cycled, and heated so...). It appeared as if the foot was dying and there was a white fuzzy fungus looking bit on the bad foot. I quarantined him and the fungus went away but all the skin and muscle was gone from the foot and a couple toe bones started falling off. Before letting it all fall off I cut it off and treated with a round of half strength furan 2. This was about a month and a half-two months ago and now the little guy is actually growing back some bone it appears...still waiting to see what the final result is for this growth, I can attach pictures of the whole process if anyone was interested.

Edit: Just read the last post again and the amputation wasn't as horrible as I thought, (I had the same reaction as you, like I couldn't possibly do that to my animal but I fully believe,and have been told by people on my froggy forum, caudata.org, that the amputation saved his life and saved whatever it was from going up further and killing him.) I just took sharp scissors and did what had to be done, for me there wasn't any skin/muscle left, just bones really... so there was no bleeding or squirming from the frog, I don't think he felt it at all.


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

I'd like to see the pictures! He seems to be going downhill. Last night I found him belly up on the bottom so I kept him in the net in his quarantine tank so he was closer to the surface over night. I thought he was dead this morning, but he's still going. I'm concerned that the pimafix is actually making things worse so I'm going to have to try something else. He's got a little fungus on his other foot now, so I'd like to try to save at least one leg.


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

Good! Because I'm dying to share my story and how I can help you! Now that you mention it I don't remember if my gut had trouble getting to the top (he was/is in a 5.5 gallon 10 inch tall tank) but I kept him in a fourth gallon tubberware floating in the main tank so he could keep warm. I'll put the pictures in chronological order but let me try and explain the timeline first. From the time I noticed the fungus to the time I amputated was about 2-3 weeks (amputating was not a hasty decision >.<) my guy did not have that growth yours has on his knee though... And luckily it was only one leg. After the aputation I took him through a full course of furan 2 at half the recommended dosage (which was more fire antibacterial than anything else, to stave off further infection) and now it's been 1.5-2 months and there is new bone growth where the amputatipn was. On the last picture it's hard to tell but now there's coloration to the skin covering his new bone


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

wow. what a lucky little frog! When you quarantined him did you treat for the fungus or did it clear up on its own?

I decided to go to the pet stores and look for some medications I could use on my frog and when I came back he was dead  Last night I saw that one of the three new ones had a red spot by it's little nub, so I separated it (container with a lid floating in the tank since I'm running out of places to quarantine) I thought this was just a wound from trying to hide under rocks or something. This morning it somehow managed to get out, possibly through an air hole, and was back in the tank. The spot had spread and now had that same fungal look as the other one. I was given a lot of bacterial meds, but not many fungal meds, just the fizzy tabs. I decided to just treat the whole tank since the frog had been in there when I found it this morning. Dissolved the tab in water before adding it, only used half the dose and within a few minutes the sick frog was belly up. Luckily I had gotten a new container ready (water without meds) incase there were any bad reactions. Put the frog in there and it's doing alright, but I noticed it's not using its left leg anymore! The leg is losing color just like the other frog's did, but the fungus isn't on the leg this time. Checked the three remaining frogs (very closely) and didn't find any wounds or fungus, but they're in the tank that's being treated anyway since it seems like once they're infected there's nothing I can do. They seem to be handling the medication fine, but I've been checking on them frequently. I was told to look for Maroxy, but I didn't find it today. 

Helppp! I really don't want to watch another little frog slowly die


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

I was told to treat with maroxy as well when he still had the fungus but couldn't find it and then the fungus cleared up leaving him with a dead leg...my guy did stop using his leg at the very beginning. I do think it's best to treat the whole tank it seems like the new frogs probably had it, you should look up a fungus called chytrid, that's what I thought mine had (luckily he didn't because it's really bad) chytrid kills really quickly and it's a fungus of some kind...I can't remember much more about it off the top off my head but I remember understanding that they usually die within a week of showing symptoms...
Edit: sorry to sound so grim I hope it isn't chytrid but it's better to be informed right..? Good luck with your guys I'll be watching this thread and try to help as much as possible, you should check out caudata.org and go to the frog section and see what you can find


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

I was up all night reading about chytrid fungus! And I will check out caudata.org, thanks! Last night I noticed in the last two pictures I posted that it looked like there was fungus on the left leg so I went and looked and the frog was not using either of its back legs and I thought they looked a little more red than usual. I flipped it over and found what looked like a blood clot in the right leg. The little frog was dead this morning  I've always been happy that I've never come across red leg and now I'm scared that that's what this may have been. The three frogs in the tank are doing fine. When I checked them last night I noticed a little redness on the webbing of the front arm of the frog that had come with the two that died. It just looks like veins though, it's not an all over the arm type of redness. I will post pictures so maybe somebody can tell me if this is red leg. 

First two are of the one that died last night and the last one is of the only survivor of the trio.


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## charliegill110 (May 19, 2014)

what pet store did you get these frogs from?


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

I got the frogs from pet supplies plus, where they were housed with ACFs.


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## charliegill110 (May 19, 2014)

i wonder if they acf had something to do with it?


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

charliegill110 said:


> i wonder if they acf had something to do with it?


African Clawed frogs are asymptomatic of chytrid fungus. In other words, they carry it and give it to ADF but don't suffer from it themselves.

The guy in California where I buy my ADF warned me to never get ADF that had been housed with ACF.

As an aside, ACF are banned in California as they are also asymptomatic of _Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis_ which also kills other species. Google "African Dwarf Frog carries disease." I heard about the fungus first on NPR. I don't thing Bd is the same as chytrid.


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## FinnDublynn (Feb 27, 2015)

This is an awesome thread for me to read because I just started thinking about getting some ADF's and this is so very informative about things that can go wrong.. I am very sorry for your loss, tho... 

I did have a quick question, about one of the other posters pictures....










What is that round thing behind the frog...?? It looks like hes crawling out of a misty pond almost... O_O


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

lol it's a slice of agate that I feed them on, they seemed to have trouble getting in and out of the clear feeding bowl and this seemed like a good alternative  (I use a turkey baster to blow off any little bit of sand before feeding and they've adjusted really well, I strongly suggest it!


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## FinnDublynn (Feb 27, 2015)

I thought that's what it might be... but I was like "that looks so strange...."


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

I came across that information about the ACFs being carriers of chytrid fungus while researching it the last two days, so that's my guess as to why they had it.

Just an update- I noticed my original female frog's legs and arms turning red (dark red) and started to panic since I think the last frog may have had red leg. I've read that this almost always means death for frogs, but there have been cases of some frogs surviving. I decided to use some triple sulfa since it's effective against gram negative bacteria as a last ditch effort. I used very small amounts and have been monitoring her closely. I also made sure not to disturb or stress her too much. Today is day 3 and her legs don't look at red as they were. I can't say for certain what she had/has, but it seems to be clearing up.

FinnDublynn- I saw your posts on another thread about wanting to get ADFs. I hope this thread doesn't discourage you! I love mine and this is actually the first time I'm dealing with any frog related issues. I used to have mine with my bettas in a divided tank. They could fit around the dividers, which I liked because it meant more room for them, but whenever I saw one hanging out in between the divider and glass I got paranoid that it was stuck (that was never the case.) They will get into any small open spaces, even if they can't get out, and make sure any filter intakes are covered so their arms and legs don't get sucked in. My male frog always tried to catch my betta's fins, but the frogs are pretty slow so he was never successful. And other than the betta always gobbling up his food and then the frogs food, I never had any problems when they were all together (now the frogs have their own 20 gal long). I hope you decide to get some, I think they make a nice addition!


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## FinnDublynn (Feb 27, 2015)

Oh no! Not discouraged. I just want to know everything I'm getting into and this was just very informative on things to look for!


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Here's hoping your female makes it. If you want more ADF I buy mine from a man in California who has supplied me (and others) with nice, healthy ones. And none have been exposed to ACF ... which are banned in that state.


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## ohBry (Nov 19, 2014)

Now I know the risks of "saving" them from being ACF food. Just thought I'd let everybody that commented on this thread know that the remaining three frogs are doing great. I think it was over the course of a week after my last post that things seemed to get worse and then all of a sudden everything cleared up and their legs weren't as red and didn't look like they had little blood clots anymore. So here are some pictures of how they're doing, because who doesn't like to look at pictures?

The first picture is the newest female on top of their little tunnel and the male is on the bottom right.
Second picture is my original female and a photo bombing tank mate. You can see that her legs look much better :-D


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

They look great! Thank you so much for updating and the photos.


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

Aww I'm so happy you updated us they look great! nice weight on them too


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