Do I have an outbreak!? Help me ID Cause of death please!!!

EvilLost

New Member
Hey all,

I am quite upset. I have now lost 6 of my 7 pygmies over the past 6 months. I know 2 were old age, 1 was a freak accident (the crickets attacking her), and 1 was eggbound...ok. But both my lost males were totally healthy and seemed to die, literally, overnight....


I lost both my males to IDENTICAL SYMPTOMS. I could tell that my latter male was not doing great the past few days (he had REALLY odd coloration up for the past 3 or so days)....I woke up this morning to find him dead....although he was still standing up with his head held tall like always...I was quite surprised that he was still holding onto the side wall (he was standing upright vertically, dead!)


What is really bothering me.....I lost my favorite male in a separate enclosure to EXACTLY the same thing. He was healthy one night, the next day he was dead and had "chunks" missing from his body (I'm not sure if this means a cricket in the tank ate at him overnight, but the chunk seems somewhat large)


If you see the pics, you can see that he is missing a chunk out from under his chin and (hard to see) a chunk out from under his armpit. What REALLY boggles my mind is that he was definitely alive last night when I went to sleep, and he was very dead this morning....but look at his eyes!!

Why would one eye completely dry up/disappear, while the other eye is still present and slightly open? ANY info on cause of death would be highly appreciated...seeing as my pygs are kept in 2 SEPARATE enclosures so its not like one would have reasonably infected the other even if a disease was involved (which I doubt b/c the females in the respective tanks did not die to this)... and what the heck happened to his lip?

Very sad to be down to 1 young lady only.... :(

EDIT: In particular compare his left and right eye......also, are his colors not generally odd for a pygmy? He was extremely pink, esp in the arm areas his whole life
 

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Dude i wish i could help you.. Im sorry to hear this happened. Have you gone through the tanks looking for possible culprits?
 
well there are always a few 1/4" crickets free-roaming in their tanks, which i suspect MIGHT have nibbled away after they had died...if so, it could explain the chunks missing under the chin/arm (and my other male who died in the other enclosure had a chunk missing right next to his anus).


however, that definitely won't explain the eye thing....how could one eye COMPLETELY dry up overnight while the other eye is intact?

and the mouth (see first pic)!?

not sure what else to look for exactly.....and debating if I need to move my last remaining mama to a clean/sterile tank just incase (she seems super healthy tho and growing)
 
You might want to move her to a sterile tank and clean out and sterilize the tank. Then if its a disease you'll have that taken care off. You could also take his body to the vet and see if they will do an autopsy and see what happened.?

If its bot disease, then keep an eye on the crickets. Is that all you feed them.? Maybe don't let them free range, and only add more once you know they are eaten. Then if they are left take them out.

This is all I can think so. Sorry about all your loses.
 
The damage to your poor babies looks like crickets eating on the. Now the eye thing, how way the pgymy laying? If one eye was near the substrate and the other up to the air that MIGHT explain it. Bit I am not sure on the, it just seems reasonable. Really sorry, I know you enjoyed them a lot.
 
God man, sorry you lost another one:(
Thats awful:(

The crickets couldve ate the eye out. Could there be any unknown insects in the viv?
Like a centipede or some other harmful ground dweller you wouldnt usually see?

Sorry this is happening bro.
 
This guy was dead literally HOLDING himself up vertically on the back wall. I didn't think he was dead at first because he was UP on the wall (not on the ground) but then once I noticed his eye I realized something was up.

The eye has DRIED out, there are no wounds/bite marks/blood marks anywhere around it. This is really confusing me :\


@chamtini: its not really possible to find the 1/4" crickets nightly, let alone dig them out >.< I am likely going to change her to a sterile tank tonight just in case. what is "bot disease"?


EDIT: I've had a bad 6 months, but at least before that I had a nice 9 month spree without any health complications and 2 of my pygs made it to pretty old (2.5 and 3+ years old). This guy was approaching 2 years old as well, perhaps his odd coloration was a sign of old age?

How old have your pygs gotten? Perhaps I'll make a thread/poll on that right now
 
If you cant find them then just add them one by one until she doesn't eat them anymore.? I don't know if pygmys eat as soon as they see their food though. And I meant not disease, sorry about that. I hit the wrong letter and didnt see it.
 
I'm so disappointed. Not in you, just that all your pygs have decided to spontaneously combust. You were like the one person that had enough to actually make some babies for captive populations! And they just gave up on you and died. :( I don't know what happened to them (although in death the body does weird things, so the dried up eye really doesn't surprise me at all) and I'm sorry they're dropping like flies.
 
hopefully between Shawntea's babies and I have one hatchling approaching 1 week old and 4 more eggs incubating that all look great...



this morning I woke up to a "tic tac" in my remaining mama's tank.

I have not experienced this before, but I have heard of others talk about it....it was pure white, round, tic tac size, STICKY. At first I thought it was poop but it was pure white so now I'm thinking it is an egg...

She did mate with the male who died in this thread (believed mating due to behavioral changes anyway) a couple weeks back so I'm expecting eggs from her.

Except there was no hole and it is DEFINITELY not developed. Its also sticky and the only one. (i dug around anyway despite there being no signs of a hole, but found nothing)

I'm not expecting an underdeveloped egg to be a good sign though ..


EDIT: is there a particularly good product for candling eggs / mamas? I got an LED flashlight but its not so great...looking for a midgrade product (like $50-60 range)...I keep running into these chicken egg candlers but havne't found much other than that
 
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I hope they all hatch and thrive! I wish I could send my males to you to help...but I just cannot part with them. Just not an option for me.
 
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