I'm sorry your frog passed away, Vanessa, and I'm sorry that you feel the way you do.

However, I do have to defend our board. I watched over your thread, and believed, and still do, that you were getting good advice. People here are volunteers, free of associations with pet shops or any biases that pay may give. They do this only to help others and help animals. Dr. Barb, who you referenced, is actually a physician in real life and is completely tied up at this moment dealing with humans, and records, and a hospital, and her own family. As with the vast majority, if not all, of our moderators and admins, we have school, jobs, families, and other commitments outside of this board to attend to. As well, please note that everyone on this board has been pleasant and nice, and no one has accused you of killing your frog.

I will offer you some advice, if you feel that you want to take it. If you do not trust such "real information", then that decision is yours to make.

Pimafix is herbal. It isn't actually antibiotic or antiparasitic. It can have no harmful effect (and likely no beneficial effect) if added to fish. However, when one is dealing with sensitive fish and other animals (like frogs, who have no scales and are quite sensitive to things that are added to the water because there is no barrier between the water and their skin), it is best to avoid unnecessary and unproven additives like this.

The medications that we, and most others, have found to be safe for use with frogs include Maracyn I and II (antibiotics) and Maroxy.

Ich is unlikely to attack frogs, but it can occur in the tank with frogs in it, especially if there are other fish in said tank. Ich medications are generally not safe for frogs -- they are quite too harsh. Frogs should be separated if at all possible for ich treatment.

Testing kits are very useful. I suppose if you had a 2.5 gallon tank with one frog in it that you were 100% changing every week, and you'd done the baselines on your tap water, you could forgo purchasing one. Otherwise, it's very important to measure ammonia, nitrite, and nitrAte values, as they can often be the stressor allowing illness to take hold, and are easily fixed. To give you an idea of what these chemicals that fish and frogs naturally produce do (we, on the other hand, convert them into less toxic urea and pee them out): burns, hemorrhages, decreased immunity, stunting of growth, and decreased oxygen capacity, to name a few.

How much you feed a frog will vary depending on frog age and size. That's perhaps why there isn't a straight black and white answer. How much had you been feeding? How much does it take to make the stomach swell a bit?

Frog dropsy does exist; however, it usually evolves over a slightly slower time period than 2 days. Certain things can be done to help it, including antibiotics and aspirations.

I would advise against forcefeeding fish or frogs in the future; along with the handling, it provides a large amount of stress. Plus, if the fish or frog is all ready quite ill, it is likely that unnecessary processes, like digestion, have been slowed or shut down while blood and metabolism are shunted toward more important processes (ie. brain, fighting off infection). As well, food that is safe in humans is not necessarily safe for other animals. As well, frogs' digestive tract bacteria are likely quite different than ours, making bacterial transfer from yogurt unlikely to be successful.


Again, sorry for your loss.


~Ash