HELP!! african dwarf frog dying(??)

[ibe]

a little under a week ago while i was cleaning the sand with a gravel vac, his leg got stuck and i accidentally sucked him in. i panicked and got him out of the tube as quickly as i could but his skin was incredibly red and irritated. i’ve been keeping an eye on him the past week or so and while his redness has gotten better he’s still very swollen. i didn’t feed him yesterday to see if he was just getting fat but my other frogs are skinny while he is still huge. he still eats frozen (thawed) bloodworms but he seems to float and constantly tip to the side. i always see him at the bottom of my tank but he’s been hanging out at the top which is really worrying for me. as i’m typing this i’m in the process of introducing him to my quarantine tank. please, if anyone has any idea what is going on let me know. i don’t want him to die and i’m really stressed about it. is this bloat?? if there’s nothing i can do, how can i euthanize him so he’ll go peacefully? tested water parameters and ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are all 0 ppm. ph is aprox. 8.0. he is now in qt and wedged himself between my filter and the tank edge. i made sure he’s not stuck (many of my other frogs love to do this).

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Poor guy, and poor you, that's a horrible situation to be in. I don't know much about frogs I'm afraid, never kept them, but I know @Essjay has. I know they have delicate skin though, and the suction of syphon tube could do some damage. He is still eating, so I wouldn't give up hope yet - but if he makes a turn for the worse, I know clove oil can be used humanely to euthanise fish - however I do not know whether it would work for frogs. For now, I'd keep the water very clean (is it cycled though? With zero nitrAtes?) try to give him good food, and hope for the best.

For the future and for anyone lurking who reads this, syphons can definitely hurt and kill aquatic creatures. For safety, control of the flow, and to prevent removing too much water before you've finished cleaning, put your thumb over the end of the syphon that's in the bucket. Then you can pause the flow when a frog/fish/shrimp gets too close, or gets sucked in. Also gives you a lot of control, so you put your thumb over the end, the suction stops, and you can safely move the syphon to the next spot to clean, and avoid sucking up tank inhabitants where you can!

Cory demonstrates this technique in these videos, worth watching, I promise! Cory crimps the hose to pause the flow, I just put my thumb over the output end of the gravel vac.

Some tiny tank inhabitants can happily survive a trip through the gravel vac. Whenever I water change my tank with shrimp, or my breeding pygmy cory colony, it's impossible to avoid them all, especially tiny fry that try to hide in the substrate and are incredibly hard to see. So a water change on either tank means my spending a lot of time sorting through the buckets of removed tank water very carefully, to rescue any tiny fry or shrimplets that were in the bucket, and return them to the tank.
I hope your frog makes it, and hope someone with frog knowledge can help more!

 

[Essjay]

From what I remember when I had frogs floating on the surface like that is not a good sign. Because they are sensitive to added chemicals, using a medication is not an option, I'm afraid. All you can do is wait and watch.

 

[Jamie D.]

Hanging out at the top definitely isn't a good sign. You can use some medications, but it helps to know what's wrong. I've used Methylene blue on frog injuries before, but in my case, I followed some bad advice (from an ADF forum) to add salt, and my guy was gone the next day (so don't do that). The Methylene Blue did seem to be helping before that - I used it at half-strength as a dip for my frog, 10 minutes at a time, just because I didn't have a quarantine tank I could treat in.

I've also seen reports of people using Maracyn (sp?) 2 for frog illnesses, but that really doesn't seem applicable here, since it's an injury, rather than an illness that was the catalyst.

One of my frogs had that floating, list-to-the-side thing for awhile, but I pulled way back on feeding for a few days, and she eventually recovered. So maybe feed very sparingly or not at all for several days - see if that helps?