Mass Die Off Any ideas

[tonymontanaflows]

i posted this over at talkto.thefrog.org but would like to hear some opinions here too. i'm believing it was possible chytrid infection from contaminated crickets. i normally bought my crickets from a small pet store that doesn't carry any herps, but bought waxworms, 2dozen crickets from a petco around february and i remember the employee their was just finishing maintaining all the herp tanks prior to bagging up the crickets.

here's the post:

Between March and just last week all my herps have passed away
4 WC 2m/2f marbled salamanders i've had since 8/06
1 WC fowler's toad i've had since metamorph 8/07
1 CB male tomato i've had since a metamorph 12/06

the species where housed separately in similar setups: plastic tubs with layered sand, charcoal, 1in packed topsoil floor, and a loose top layer of coco cypress mulch, topsoil and leaf litter. the salamander tank was originally setup around 1/06 and up until this Febuary i did a complete coco fiber replacement due to acidity concerns(dieing worms, tank did have some shredded sphagnum moss). all tanks had pill/sowbug, millipedes, springtail, and red wrigglers that did alot of cleanup.

the salamanders where the first to go from the beginning of March till beginning of May. The first 2 were runts and didn't show any abnormal behavior or anything remarkable on their corpses. The last one to die however exhibited some type of rear paralysis or lethargy during its last days.

The toad was next at the end of May.it too displays some rear paralysis or lethargy during its last days.

My tomato passed 6/10. It seemed to have gone blind 3 weeks prior to it's death. It was going through a shed during this time. It's eyes looked fine, but it went from burrowing, and keeping under /in it's log and tube hide to being out in the open and bumping and rubbing against the side of the tank. This particular tomato also had an atrophied right leg since a baby due to tangling during shipment and was never a hopper but now started to due so in panic. I did manage to tweezer feed and it did poop during this blindness. It died rather normal position nose against the side of the tank.

Any ideas what may have caused this? possible culprits:

1)waxworms - supposedly high fat can cause blindness. i always have issues finding a good batch of them but found a decent batch March. I wouldn't say i overfeed them since despite the batch being decent my fridge was a little to cold so most of them died before a significant amount could have been eaten

2)plastic leaching from tank, spray bottle and water jugs

3)bad crickets, earthworms, pill/sowbugs, nightcrawlers. the only noticeable problem i had was in the salamander tank with earthworms dieing due to what i believe acidic old substrate. the tomato's tank was never changed since 12/06 and didn't have such problems also the after the 2/09 substrate replacement in the salamander tank no more earthworm deaths. crickets that lived long enough molted fine, any retarded bought or seen cricket were thrown out before fed and the pillbugs are literally indestructable

4) bad herptivite... expiration date was 6/09 stopped using it prior to last week in may. looked normal no moisture, mold, etc. Rep-Cal mentions no risk of vitamin a poisoning. my rep-cal d3 is good.

5) bad reptisafe dechlorinator. forgot how long i had it always stored in a dark place. for water i fill a gallon poland spring jug let it sit for a day add about 15 drops shake add about another 15 drops shake. and the occasional on the spot spray bottle fill er up.

5) bad flukers orange. bought around feb. all the bugs seems to be doing fine on it

 

[Jennewt]

Here is my 2 cents worth - idle speculation, of course. I think all your 'phibs must have died from some sort of infection. For all of the ones where you saw symptoms, they all seem to have had some kind of neurological problems. It's possible that the germs arrived via the live food, but other than that, I don't think any of the 6 culprits you list could cause deaths like this.