[chuckpowell]

In another thread, way down, I asked if anyone has had their collection wiped out by bring wc frogs into it, or personally knows of someone this has happened to. I've heard this as a vague fear for years - heard that its happened, but it never first hand knowledge. Its always I heard this from someone else. That's a good way to pass knowledge, but in this case I think it might be passing on fiction. I'd really like to talk from someone this has happened to and to try and figure out why. Better husbandry through knowledge and experience.

Best,

Chuck

 

[srrrio]

I have only been keeping frogs for the last 5 years but I remember reading those kind of stories, maybe on this board. I have never heard them from another keeper not even second hand.

Loss of collections due to weather/temperature control I have heard of more then once.

Sally

 

[Ed]

See the comments here
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...t-wild-collected-tinctorius-7.html#post590940

Ed

 

[evolvstll]

The thread with the wc warning is I believe the thread chuck was referring to and that he posted in.
I have not heard of anyone specifically. Personally as organisms we are in symbiotic relationships with bacteria etc. My thought though is what is the effect individuals are having going too far and over treating? Basically sterilizing and trying to kill everything?
Also the possible danger I could see with untreated wc would be introducing chytrid. I do know someone that did get frogs with chytrid a few years back. They have a large collection and still do. They lost a few frogs, not am entire collection. A few frogs were impacted not their collection.

 

[billschwinn]

I have many years experience in Reptiles and Amphibians, obviously including Darts, I have not myself or heard direct from others tales of mass casualties. I would think that if it did happen to someone it would really be due to lacking hygiene and isolation care. I have had personal experience with Cobalts and Powder Blue tincs that I received as adults alive and breeding at 12 plus years, Being adults when I got them really says something of the potential long life of these frogs.

 

[stemcellular]

Didn't Hextangz from Germany have that happen?

 

[Ed]

I have many years experience in Reptiles and Amphibians, obviously including Darts, I have not myself or heard direct from others tales of mass casualties. I would think that if it did happen to someone it would really be due to lacking hygiene and isolation care. I have had personal experience with Cobalts and Powder Blue tincs that I received as adults alive and breeding at 12 plus years, Being adults when I got them really says something of the potential long life of these frogs.

A friend of mine lost most of his snake collection to a paramyxo outbreak back in the late 1980s. One of the reasons I'm running the local 4-H herp club is because the previous person lost his boids to inclusion body disease. At a zoo I'm familar with they lost large portion of thier collection to a cryprosporidia outbreak in the early 1990s.. When I met Roger Conant before his death, he relayed how a collection he worked with was decimated by ameobiasis and the Steinhart aquarium had a ameobiasis problem with some of thier enclosures as documented here Reptilian amoebiasis - NAPOLITANO - 2007 - International Zoo Yearbook - Wiley Online Library so there are some good records of problems.
Some outbreaks can be controlled with good hygiene but some like paramyxo are also airborn. see for example JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

With respect to amphibians, small feeder insects can transport pathogens from one enclosure to another which is why animals for repatriation are supposed to housed in different buildings with some level of biosecurity....

 

[Tony]

I do know someone that did get frogs with chytrid a few years back. They have a large collection and still do. They lost a few frogs, not am entire collection. A few frogs were impacted not their collection.

I received frogs with chytrid last year, a Megophrys nasuta and a group of Agalychnis callidryas. I lost two of the red eyes, I was out of town at the time they began to show symptoms and my girlfriend was not familiar enough with them to recognize what was happening. When I returned I successfully treated them and all remaining frogs survived, including a female red eye that was in the late stages of the disease who made a full recovery. My existing collection was not infected. With proper quarantine chytrid is easily managed and poses little risk.

 

[Woodsman]

The Staten Island Zoo once had the largest collection of rattlesnakes in the U.S. (a collection built over the career of Carl Caulfield). They had an outbreak of what think I believe was an enteritis and loss essentially every snake in the collection.

I understand that they are trying to rebuild the collection in Carl's honor.

Richard.

 

[markpulawski]

This is close to that scenario, years ago when I lived near Cincinnati I sold some frogs to guy named Larry Miller, after about 3 - 4 weeks he asked if I would buy them back as he could not care for so many animals (he was into a bunch of stuff), these were CB Yellowbacks. I took them back and put them back into the tank they had been in, within 2 weeks I watched every tank I had go down...WC Azureus, Histo's...in all about 15 tanks worth of stuff. I called larry and asked him had he lost any frogs recently and said he had lost an entire group of WC Auratus he had got from Strictly and that was the tank he had put my frogs in...he did not clean the tank and he did not tell me this had happened. Needless to say I was beyond pissed and I don't believe I ever talked to Larry after that, so has a collection been wiped out by WC frogs, indirectly I would say yes in my case.

 

[billschwinn]

A friend of mine lost most of his snake collection to a paramyxo outbreak back in the late 1980s. One of the reasons I'm running the local 4-H herp club is because the previous person lost his boids to inclusion body disease. At a zoo I'm familar with they lost large portion of thier collection to a cryprosporidia outbreak in the early 1990s.. When I met Roger Conant before his death, he relayed how a collection he worked with was decimated by ameobiasis and the Steinhart aquarium had a ameobiasis problem with some of thier enclosures as documented here Reptilian amoebiasis - NAPOLITANO - 2007 - International Zoo Yearbook - Wiley Online Library so there are some good records of problems.
Some outbreaks can be controlled with good hygiene but some like paramyxo are also airborn. see for example JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

With respect to amphibians, small feeder insects can transport pathogens from one enclosure to another which is why animals for repatriation are supposed to housed in different buildings with some level of biosecurity....

Hey Ed, In regards to Snakes, yes I remember the 80's and maybe early 90's being full of cases of Crypto and Paramyxo,and am familiar with their spread. I have not heard of any of those two pathogens becoming problematic in regards to frogs or frog collections though, which is why I would not have thought it to be relevant to this topic. Bill

 

[Ed]

In post number 3 above I posted a link to mass mortalities of anurans documented in the literature.. if interested we can also look at mass mortality events that occur in the wild, but I'm not sure there is any real value in it.

The best message that I think is coming from this thread is that a quarantine process should be followed when aquiring new animals from any source (whether it is wc or not).

Ed

 

[Ed]

Hey Ed, In regards to Snakes, yes I remember the 80's and maybe early 90's being full of cases of Crypto and Paramyxo,and am familiar with their spread. I have not heard of any of those two pathogens becoming problematic in regards to frogs or frog collections though, which is why I would not have thought it to be relevant to this topic. Bill

Hi Bill,

I referenced them as there are documented mass mortality events in institutional collections where quarantine and other protective measures are mandatory. Even in well controlled zoo collections it is now common to request blood antigen tests for paramyxo virus in susceptiable snakes before shipment to a new institution along with two more during quarantine (quarantine for rattlesnakes often exceeds 90 days due to paramyxovirus). If we see analagous outbreaks in institutions, then we should be aware that they can occur in home collections....

We also have an analagous virus in amphibians, specifically those in the ranavirus group of iridoviruses. Some of these are able to infect a wide variety of hosts and even jump taxa see for example Experimental Transmission and Induction of Ranaviral Disease in Western Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) and Red-Eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans).. others like the tiger salamander viruses can result in animals that are asymptomatic carriers allowing for infection year after year (see for example http://www.esf.edu/efb/brunner/pdfs/CollinsEtAl2004-ModelSystem.pdf )

This is also an indication of why we should be concerned.... http://www-lbtest.jcu.edu.au/school/phtm/PHTM/frogs/papers/green-2002.pdf

Ed

 

[mllaursen]

I lost all of my collection to chytrid about two years ago but it was from cb D. truncatus. I managed to "cure" 5 azureus with lamisil but they never really went back to eating well and ended up wasting away. weather they're captive or wild quarantine is key. I usually am fairly cautious but these came from a source I have known for years and I got lazy.

 

[Scott]

... and here is the answer that I was looking for that I asked you on your thread, so never mind.

s

 

[SmackoftheGods]

This is close to that scenario, years ago when I lived near Cincinnati I sold some frogs to guy named Larry Miller, after about 3 - 4 weeks he asked if I would buy them back as he could not care for so many animals (he was into a bunch of stuff), these were CB Yellowbacks. I took them back and put them back into the tank they had been in, within 2 weeks I watched every tank I had go down...WC Azureus, Histo's...in all about 15 tanks worth of stuff. I called larry and asked him had he lost any frogs recently and said he had lost an entire group of WC Auratus he had got from Strictly and that was the tank he had put my frogs in...he did not clean the tank and he did not tell me this had happened. Needless to say I was beyond pissed and I don't believe I ever talked to Larry after that, so has a collection been wiped out by WC frogs, indirectly I would say yes in my case.

While I think I probably would have done the same thing in this situation, I do think this is a great reminder for the need of proper quarantine. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if proper quarantine and sanitation when working between tanks is implemented stories like this simply shouldn't exist.

It's a great reminder for me as I am getting new frogs here in the next few weeks.... I don't usually like rules of thumb in this hobby but I _do_ think a great one is: always quarantine new frogs.

 

[Azurel]

While I think I probably would have done the same thing in this situation, I do think this is a great reminder for the need of proper quarantine. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if proper quarantine and sanitation when working between tanks is implemented stories like this simply shouldn't exist.

It's a great reminder for me as I am getting new frogs here in the next few weeks.... I don't usually like rules of thumb in this hobby but I _do_ think a great one is: always quarantine new frogs.

I totally agree and implement that in my growing collection. I think even in Marks case shows once the frogs leave your collection and out of your hands and husbandry practices, that if they were to return to your collection you should treat them as "new" frogs and return them to QT even if you trust the person that they had gone to.....From Marks post I think I just added another level of security. Cause I am sure I might have done the same thing without thinking about the consequences like Mark suffered.....Good point to ponder.

 

[Ben Wehr]

When was new to the hobby I bought an adult auratus soon to find out that it was WC/FR. At some point I transitioned this frog into different tanks and w/o cleaning put other frogs in them afterwards and past on intestinal parasites. a couple frogs died bc I put infected frogs back into other vivs with healthy ones. I eventually cross contaminated everything and lost them all.

I can't see how with isolation and proper husbandry that this would have happened. The only logical way a whole collection could be wiped would be air borne virus or fungal spores. if you clean tools, hands and anything exposed to other frogs and vivs than I just can't think of how other frogs could be infected with anything.

It pays to live by other peoples knowledge and experience and can cost greatly to live by your own.

 

[sports_doc]

I've had 2 'events' in my career.....

One about 6-7 years ago, in a 'bank' of vivs [about 16] that were all situated together on one wall, the entire collection of pumilio purchased from a well know FLA breeder died. There was some influx into the 20 + pumilio collection though, from some matched animals from the same source that I added from a NY hobbyist to create proper pairings. Anyway, they all perished and I had to resort to pulling all the vivs apart and bleaching them outside. PITA. Ultimately they stood dry for a year b/f I reclaimed them.

the second event about 2 years ago. I had been housing 3 of the most beautiful canary yellow Rio Guaramo WC/FR females I had [and still have] ever seen, for over a year....waiting for the 'perfect' male to come around. Well, a friend in FLA sent me a WC/FR new imported male from SR [he had housed it in QT at his store/shop in FLA for some weeks and 'treated' for typical intestinal and bacterial pathogens prophylacticly. Well within a week of his arrival I had eggs everywhere, then the frogs died, all 4 within days. !

Again, another tank that got the 'bomb' treatment... ;-(

Now, lets talk Ranavirus more. Who tests for it? what do we know about prevalence in the hobby? is it fatal? visible? PCR testing only? any treatment? Are we at all worried??

Ed?

In both my cases frogs were from FLA/Panama imports, I jumped the gun and added them to established groups/tanks, and I lost them all quickly necessitating drastic sterilization measures.

And here we are again, with a multitude of pumilio imports coming into FLA and a big 'buzz' about them in the hobby. So much so that Ive been told 1300 frogs have moved into collections across the USA in the past 2 imports from Panama alone.

Shawn

 

[Bcs TX]

Great timely bump Shawn.
I test for ranavirus for all new additions plus strict QT practices.
We need more discussions on ranavirus, IMO many do not add this to their QT procedures.

This is a good start plus can be watched via U-Tube a link is on the page.

2011 Ranavirus Symposium

Beth