Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone. I've had two American toads since August. Milton is the larger of the two, about 2 1/2 inches long, and Francis is smaller, about 1 1/2 inches. The tank is a 10 gallon with eco-earth compressed coconut fiber as bedding, a shallow rock-shaped water dish, and a half of a hollow log for them to hide under. Here are a few problems that have arisen recently:

1. The biggest problem is that the larger of the two (Milton) suddenly seems to have some problems with his front legs. They appear to be paralyzed or very close to it. He can still hop around, but it looks very awkward. I don't think this is metabolic bone disease because I've been gut-loading the crickets with calcium enriched meal before I feed them to the toads. Any ideas?

2. A few weeks ago I noticed that there were tiny flies that seemed to be living and breeding in the tank, so I cleaned the tank out and they seem to be gone for now. If anyone has had a similar problem or knows what they are and whether or not they are dangerous to the toads, please let me know.

3. Upon closer inspection of the tank when I found the flies, I also discovered that there were tiny, white mites crawling around on the floor. Once again, they are gone for now since I just cleaned the tank. If anyone else knows about these, please let me know.

Thank you.

I'm not sure what's wrong with the one toads'legs. When you dust, are you just doing this once a week? I'd opt for a larger tank for them though. Toads need room to hunt around at night. I'd have a minimum 20 long tank for them. It's possible that the toad might have hurt his legs by bumping on something??

The flies might be fruit flies. Sometimes, when I leave a piece of carrot/potatoe in the tank for a food source for the crickets until they are eaten, the flies come about. They wouldn't harm your toads, but they sure are pesty little things.

I'm not sure how the little white mites arrived, but as long as you keep up with cleaning like you are doing, you'll probably get rid of them. You have to get rid of the substate completely and start fresh. The tank should be cleaned with a 10% bleach to 90% water mix, then rinsed, rinsed and rinsed again. If you have any wood in there you might want to bake it under a low temp in the oven for about 1/2 hour. Other than that, disinfect all other ornamentals. Bugs can be tough because they lay eggs not so visible to our human eyes. I don't think that the mites whould harm the toads either.

yeah, thats not good. clean the tank out with a 5% bleach solution. i have no idea why those things came, are you sure they were mites? mites are red i think, they could have been springtails, they are small and white, but mites are a lot smaller. you would have had to look very close to see the mites w/ your bare eye. spring tails inhabit tanks that are humid, dirty w/ feces and/or rotting/decaying material. if you cleaned the tank and they were springtails they should have gone away. i've had those before on a constantly moist piece of driftwood, i took the wood out and left the springtials on, and cleaned the tank. they lived for about a month and they went away, and i put them in the same conditions they would have been in in the tank. just wanted to see what would happen, i think they come and go though, but are pretty much harmless as long as you don't have a lot of them.

about the toad possibly having it's frong legs parilized, i have no idea, i would take it to the vet. how can you tell that it can't move them well? how old is the toad? the flies could be fruit flies, they are harmless, but if there is a lot of them, there might be something wrong. they like moist warm tanks. i have them in all of my tanks i think and they have proved many times to be harmless. good luck!

my daughters toad did this twitchy paralyzed crazy thing about two months ago after i put a bunch of meal worms in the tank the meal worms were extremely large and i thought maybe he had eaten too much so i removed the remaining worms and did not feed him for about a week each day he gradually got better and now he is fine i hope this isn't too late and i hope it helps.!