Goodnight, Sweet Frog

All my froggies are dead. Even my beloved Copernicus! =(

The babies started dropping off, one by one, just like the last time. First, I found Loki floating one day, but unlike his previous floating that tricked me into thinking that he was dead, he actually was dead. =( Several days later, Balboa was found leaning up against the side of the tank and looking directly upwards. That pose isn’t all that abnormal and neither is holding the same position for a long time – the frogs tend to do that for a few minutes, but eventually they swim away. But when I saw that he was actually swaying with the water current, I knew it wasn’t good. Another frog down =(

At that point, there were just two frogs left – Fonzie and Copernicus. But one day at feeding time, I tapped on the glass and only Copernicus came swimming out to get his food. I searched everywhere – including taking the castle out of the tank in case Fonzie was hiding there, but no luck. Fonzie was gone =(

I suspect the Copernicus might have eaten him – he looked a little pudgy and he got really lethargic and started spending a lot of time floating. At one point, I even saw him swimming as hard as he could towards the bottom, but he just couldn’t manage to stay down – whenever he stopped swimming for even a second, he would float right back up to the top. It looked very frustrating. He spent the next several days floating most of the day, though every so often he would manage to make his way down to the bottom of the tank and I’d think “Thank god, he’s pulled through again!” And then he’d go back to floating some more. He was also moulting but the skin wasn’t coming off, which made him look extra sickly. Normally, when they moult, they either pull the skin off themselves (or pull most of it off and the rest comes off when they swim quickly across the tank), or another frog pulls it off them to eat it1, but he seemed to be too lethargic to do the former and there were no frogs around to the latter. Then one day he was floating upside down (!), which makes you think he’s a goner for sure, but upon attempting to scoop him out with the net… the moment the net touched him, he swam away!

Then, two days ago, I came home to see Copernicus sitting on the bottom of the tank, all peaceful and relaxed, looking out through the front wall of the tank. And I thought yet again, “Oh good, he’s feeling better!” But, being that I’m super paranoid because I’d been so worried about him for so many days, I tapped the front of the tank, which usually gets him to swim over to see me. Nothing. Then I picked up the glass water bottle next to the tank and set it down loudly, which usually startles the frogs… nothing. And I knew that he was gone. Poor little Copernicus. I can only hope that he died as peacefully as he looked and that he didn’t suffer. I miss him.

In a sad coincidence, I had just that day brought some frog cupcakes to my work potluck and I was all excited to do a blog posting about them. Now the photo just makes me sad.

Frog Cupcakes
  1. Gross. []

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Re: Cath@VWXYNot?Cancel

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  • oh no! I’m so sad for you. I didn’t have much success with fish and gave up the tank because the inevitable death count was so upsetting. You get so attached to the critters and feel so bad when such terrible events happen. I’d start too many mornings with upset about losing another fish and thought I was just a bad caretaker and took it personally. I think a tank of tetras is about all I am capable of. I was excited about your froggies and it got me thinking that I should try again because frogs are so darned cool, but it seems that they are no more robust.

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