Escaped Frog

Xenopus are an entirely aquatic frog.  If they spend a length of time outside of water, they quickly dry out and die.  If you do find a frog on the floor, gently pick her up and rinse her under a slow stream of frog water.  Turn her over.   If  the stomach is very red, euthanize her right away.   She will not recover.  She will only live for a few, unhappy days.  It is best to euthanize her immediately and save her the discomfort.  If, however, her stomach is not overly red, she will probably recover quite well.  Place her in a separate tank with clean 20mM salt frog water and gentamycin.  Clean the water daily.  Do not feed her during her treatment.   She should be much healthier in about a week.

Quarantining

You should have an area where you can quarantine any sick frogs.   Do not quarantine Nematode infected frogs in with non-infected frogs, or you will just spread Nematodes within your colony.  If you drop a frog on the floor, place her in quarantine for a few days to make sure she did not pick up anything from the floor.   If a frog seems at all suspect, quarantine her for the health of the colony.

 

Preventing Spread of Infections

It is important that you keep common items like nets or sponges from spreading diseases among your colony.  Never use the same net on different tanks unless you disinfect it first.  Rocal  is a very good disinfectant (tough to get now?).  You can also get Net Soak or its equivalent at any pet store.   Rinse the disinfected nets very well before using them on the frogs. 
The sponges you use to scrub your tanks should not be shared among tanks.  Have separate sponges for individual tanks.
Wear latex gloves while scrubbing tanks with frogs in them and change the gloves before introducing your hands to a new tank.
Disinfect all tanks between uses with a 10% bleach solution before you introduce frogs to it.  Add Sodium Sulfite to the tank to neutralize the bleach and rinse AT LEAST three times with fresh frog water before you add any frogs to the tank.

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