Posted by:
charlotte_cloud
at Sat Feb 16 09:26:06 2008 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by charlotte_cloud ]
Hello
I've had my RETF, 'Dave' for around 2 months and much to my distress I found him dead in his tank this morning. When I checked on him he was generally happy, lime green when sleeping during the day and darker green when active.
I kept the humidity at 60-80% but the ventilation in the tank meant that the humidity was usually around 65-68 although I tried to keep it over 70%. When I misted him iot was only with treated spring water.
I kept the temperaure within the recommended range, it was generally about 22 degrees centigrade, I would have turned the heat mat off at night but it gets pretty cold at night here and the heating goes off at about 1am, so I can't guarantee that the drop would be OK or too much.
His tank was decorated with fake plants because I was advised these were easier to clean, i had a few at the bottom that he liked to hide in and some draping from the top of the tank. I had a piece of bogwood for him to climb on and a plastic jungle tree root. i used tropical bark substrate from my local pet store.
His crickets were dusted with nutrobal once a week but he sometimes left one or two until a few days later.
His tank is around 10g but he was the only resident and the care sheets I looked at said this was fine.
I covered the sides of his tank during the night because we have some housemates who are total night owls and some who work late and come home in the middle of the night so I couldn't guarantee it'd be dark enough for him.
A couple of days ago I noticed that he was sort of olive green and when I checked on him at night his eyes were often closed, with a gold membrane over them. the morning after I noticed he was olive green he went back to his usual lime colour.
I phoned the shop I bought him at and they said the batch he came from were all still going strong. When I described the conditions of his care they said it was completely fine and the only thing they could think of causing his death was stress.
I would be looking to get another tree frog as soon as the tank has been completely cleaned, but would prefer if it didn't die on me as I love red eyed tree frogs and i was very upset by Dave's death, especially by the position I found him in. Can anyone advise me on anything I may have done wrong based on the above info? Perhaps it would be better to get a tree frog less prone to stressing out? Or maybe I should get another Red Eye and alter a few aspects of his care?
Help would be much appreciated
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