Doug vs. the interweb

October 25th, 2009 2:36 AM

HOORAY

To conclude last week's story: the frog died pretty much immediately, and then shortly after, one of the two remaining green frogs also died. In the meantime, I kept doing various research, and even posted on a frog forum that seemed well populated with knowledgeable folks. From the responses, it seems like the likely cause is Chytridiomycota, which has been spreading all over and killing off hoards of frogs. This meant that I'd have to take everything out the tank and sterilize every bit of it, drying it completely, and then reassembling, while meanwhile keeping the remaining frog in quarantine, soaking him in special anti-fungal agents every day for a week or more.

I was already in the process of disassembling and cleaning the tank when I found this out, and since I don't quite have the supplies to implement the complete solution, I figured at least sterilizing as much as I could would possibly help -- setting rocks and gravel in boiling water, then drying; cleaning out the tank completely; setting up bleach solutions in buckets to soak various equipment.. Granted, if it is that fungus, even if one thing (notably, the frog) has any of its spores on it, it doesn't matter if I clean almost everything or nothing -- it'll just reinfect. But at least it gave me an idea of what is possible for me to even do, and though it's likely that was the cause for the sudden deaths, I do not know 100%.

Anyway, that's boring and sad and kind of depressing (if it is that fungus, that changes the dynamic of frog catching in this area completely). I actually had caught a gigantic ladytoad the other day, and since it is in a separate tank with dry items, hopefully there won't have been any cross contamination.

That actually was a very difficult decision for me: Margot and I were out wandering around the pond and trails because it was a terribly nice day, and I caught a small garter snake. Since I luckily had a bucket with me, I left him in there, expecting to bring him back and set up a dry terrarium. Then, later on our walk I caught the giant toad, and had to figure out which one I would go with. Toad or snake! On one hand, it was a small garter snake, with what appeared to be some old injuries. On the other, a rather large toad with no visible problems. The toad it was, but given the latest developments, I'd have a better chance raising something that's not an amphibian at the current moment..

And as an aside, I can't help but feel like having a few miscellaneous fish in the same tank with the frog is a bad idea. There haven't been any actual conflicts, and they're all from the same basic ecosystem, but it just feels like something a 'seasoned' frog expert would hate me for. But it makes the whole thing seem so much more alive, having various levels of animals through, like a small cutout of pond life.

Now I'm just exhausted. That was intense work!