# Frogs & Toads > Fire Belly Toads (Bombina) >  Help! Sick FBT!

## Bombina21

Hello! I am new to the frog forum, and I joined because my FBT appears to be sick.  :Frown: 

My family have had FBT's for about 7 years now, and we have never seen anything like what is wrong with this frog. He is about a year and a half old, which is not old for the species, as I have heard. He is fat and looks perfectly healthy on first glance. However, a few weeks ago, we started to notice him acting weird. 

He swam in circles and tilted his head in a weird way. When he stopped swimming in circles, we thought that he was fine. Due to a leak in our previous cage, we changed the cage. The strange head tilt persisted, and he started to appear unbalanced when jumping. Today, when I checked on him, he was floating on his back in the water. I freaked out and thought that he was dead. However, a few minutes later, he swam around with his head underwater, and finally righted himself. 

We took him out of the cage, and have him currently in isolation. Do you think what he has might could have infected our other two FBTs? I have watched him jump, and he doesn't seem to be able to without landing on his back.

Does anyone know what might be wrong with him, or if we could save him? Should I post pics?

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## Jason

Hello and welcome to the forum! I believe he may be toxing out. Place him in shallow water with floating cork bark for land and change the water several times a day to keep it extra clean until he appears healthy enough to be put back into the proper tank. I hope this helps.

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## Cory

Have you ever had a fecal Test done on him? Do you give them vitamins, could also be sign of MBD. The jumping and landing on his back and the tilted head is what is making my think MBD. I don't personally think its toxed syndrome, usually when they are toxed out they swell to the point where they don't move much and the swelling is usually almost always present. And with it usually being from dirty water or undeclorinated water you would think the others would be showing some signs from the amount of time these guys spend in the water. So I think if he is just fat normally and he doesn't looked swelled up and you have a good water changing schedule it shouldn't be that. And if you think this is what it is when you put him in the tank with the declorinated warm water just put in the water, don't put the cork bark because you don't want him to come out of the water because then it will take longer for him to detox. And as mentioned above you want to keep him in there until he doesn't look swollen anymore, if he is even swollen. And again as stated above you will want to change the water every couple hours because he will more then likely pee in it. If you could post a couple pictures of him that would help with the diagnoses, but you will will have to post them to photobucket or a similar site because the photo uploader here is working.

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Krispy

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## Jason

Corey is spot on. On the thought of MBD, I'm wondering if you're providing the frog with a UVB? Fbt are diurnal and been known to bask. Some say they don't need it but I've heard from reliable sources that it should be provided. 5.0 are ideal, the 2.0 do not provide enough

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## Cory

I Actually have heard also that these guys do benefit from at least a little uvb, and I have actually heard of a lot of keepers that do provide it. Again I think its one of those do they need it or not but i think being diurnal like you said that they would obviously be exposed to it in the wild so it would benefit them in captivity.

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## Jason

Just as you said Cory, I think they really do need it or at least benefit from it. In the wild they would be exposed to it, so why deny them it in captivity to save a couple of bucks?

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## Bombina21

> Have you ever had a fecal Test done on him? Do you give them vitamins, could also be sign of MBD. The jumping and landing on his back and the tilted head is what is making my think MBD. I don't personally think its toxed syndrome, usually when they are toxed out they swell to the point where they don't move much and the swelling is usually almost always present. And with it usually being from dirty water or undeclorinated water you would think the others would be showing some signs from the amount of time these guys spend in the water. So I think if he is just fat normally and he doesn't looked swelled up and you have a good water changing schedule it shouldn't be that. And if you think this is what it is when you put him in the tank with the declorinated warm water just put in the water, don't put the cork bark because you don't want him to come out of the water because then it will take longer for him to detox. And as mentioned above you want to keep him in there until he doesn't look swollen anymore, if he is even swollen. And again as stated above you will want to change the water every couple hours because he will more then likely pee in it. If you could post a couple pictures of him that would help with the diagnoses, but you will will have to post them to photobucket or a similar site because the photo uploader here is working.


Thank you so much for the information! Where could I go to get a fecal test done? 

We use Reptisafe Instant Terrarium Cleaner to clean the water of any chorine, and to add calcium to the water. Do you think that this is enough minerals?  He has always been chubby, but he doesn't swollen at all. We change the water about once a week, or every two weeks. Is this enough? 

I don't have an account on photobucket, so I have no way to post the pictures... 

Thanks again for the help!

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## Bombina21

Yes, we do have a uvb light over our frogs cage.

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jasonm96, monster

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## Cory

The fecal you could get done at herp vet they aren't expensive at all. And if that's all the viamins they get is the calcium in the water frpm the conditioner then no that wouldn't be enough. You should be giving them a multivitamin and calcium and d3 and the uvb will help them process the d3 better. Hope I said that right. If you haven't been providing the calcium and d3 then I would say mbd is probably whats happening from the sounds of the symptoms. A good brand is Repashy Calcium Plus, this has calcium and D3 and the multivitamin all in one. Im editing because I almost forgot, I do a 25% water once a week with mine. And I usually change the filter pad around the end of the month.

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Bombina21, jasonm96

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## Bombina21

Thanks again for the help! 

We ordered some phoenix worms, which are supposed to be high calcium and will help if the frog has MBD. We are also going to the pet store today to get some Repashy Calcium. 

I checked on the frog this morning, and he seems to be hopping better, and isn't doing the head thing very much. I hope this means that he is on the road toward recovery.  :Smile:

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## Krispy

Do you have a filter setup for the water as well? Sorry i bounce on and off like the wind, lefe here is currently... well... "excessivly stressful" to say the least.

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ndb3

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## Bombina21

Yes, we have a filter set up.

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## ericbrookey

> Thanks again for the help! 
> 
> We ordered some phoenix worms, which are supposed to be high calcium and will help if the frog has MBD. We are also going to the pet store today to get some Repashy Calcium. 
> 
> I checked on the frog this morning, and he seems to be hopping better, and isn't doing the head thing very much. I hope this means that he is on the road toward recovery.


Sorry to hear about your little guy. Hope he makes a speedy recovery. I use a product by T-Rex called Fire Belly Toad Dust. It has calcium, vit A and D and protein. This way I don't have to use different products and it's fairly inexpensive. It's also meant to be used with every feed or at least close, in addition to gut loading the crickets.

Do you vary their diet at all?

Also, i use Seachem Prime to condition my tap water and it works really well. I've not seen those symptoms in mine but sounds like the experts are all over this.

Good luck!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

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## Bombina21

> Sorry to hear about your little guy. Hope he makes a speedy recovery. I use a product by T-Rex called Fire Belly Toad Dust. It has calcium, vit A and D and protein. This way I don't have to use different products and it's fairly inexpensive. It's also meant to be used with every feed or at least close, in addition to gut loading the crickets.
> 
> Do you vary their diet at all?
> 
> Also, i use Seachem Prime to condition my tap water and it works really well. I've not seen those symptoms in mine but sounds like the experts are all over this.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk


Thanks for the advice! We feed our FBT's gut loaded crickets. Every once in a while, as a treat we get them red wrigglers or nightcrawlers. Is this not enough variation? 

The frog is a tiny bit better, and isn't having much trouble jumping anymore. However, he seems very lethargic and jumps around suddenly if the cage is moved. I hope that he will pull through..

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## ericbrookey

I try and feed wax worms as a treat, not too often cause they are  fatty, dubia roaches now and again, and the occasional small mealworm. I think the more varied the better as they get a pretty wide variety in the wild.

Edit: just reread and the uvb was already mentioned by others. Sorry to rehash.

I think somebody on here, LilyPad maybe, recommends against red wigglers because they produce a slime that can turn them off from other worms in general.

I think it will take some time once you start with the vitamins and calcium.

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