long day sanitizing at petco

[Lycanthrope]

maybe some of you herp experts could help me here. about a week ago our anoles started dropping dead. before that they were thriving as long as ive been there. suddenly they are getting these raised black bumps on various parts of their bodies. a few days later death. petcos company veterinarian told me nothing more than "its an infectious disease. throw away all furnishings, sterilize the habitats and send the sick ones to the vet." now, theres 2 other petcos in our area, both of which get reptiles from the same vendor we do. i called them, same problem. another vet, the one who actually sees our animals says they are just getting abcesses from biting eachother. anyway long story longer i spent 9 hours taking apart the reptile habitats and sterilizing them, cleaning the reptiles, and pulling the sick looking ones. then i made the suggestion that we observe the healthy ones for 48 hours before putting them back up for sale. what do you think it is?

 

[Bry]

I've honestly never heard of reptiles getting 'raised black bumps' then dropping dead. I doubt that bites from other lizards would be causing that, although that is a possibility. Seeing that your Petco and others near you have the same problem, I'm guessing that the problem lies with your supplier. My best guess is that your supplier caught some anoles with some kind of parasite, and it's spreading to the others that are already at Petco? I've never heard of anything like this. Maybe the others have. :?

Bry

 

[Bry]

Okay, I showed your post to a friend. He said it sounds like blister disease. Lack of UV lighting among other things will do that to anoles. If you can use the ReptiSun 5.0 at the store, try those and see if it clears up anything. My first guess was blister disease, but I thought it was only caused by too much humidity and not enough ventilation. I said nothing because I know that Petco doesn't give their animals too much humidity to cause this.

Bry

 

[Marc_C]

hey. I used to keep about 11 anoles in a 40 g or so tank. It probably wasn't a great idea in heinsite, especially with more then 1 male. When the males are getting ready to spar, they get black dots on their "cheeks" and they get a long bump going from their head to the middle of their backs. During the sparring they get pretty aggresive. It starts with head bobbing, then some chasing, but if one doesn't run, they bite. Most of the time the biting was only done on the face, but once one lost a tail. When they fought they left little wounds on the faces of their cagemates. After witnessing 3 fights, I had to split up all the males, they were just being too brutal. if you guys are keeping more then 1 male in the tank, you are asking for trouble.

 

[Lycanthrope]

After witnessing 3 fights, I had to split up all the males, they were just being too brutal. if you guys are keeping more then 1 male in the tank, you are asking for trouble.

yeah i know heres the deal though. i dont do the animal ordering. my manager ordered me this huge mass of anoles, and i get one habitat about the size of a 15 gallon tank. heres the clencher, from my observation, about 8 of the 12 anoles is male. the bumps are every where though, tails, legs, head, body. they dont look like wounds, the look something like a black pimple. id say its prolly like bry said, blister disease, but the vet diagnosis will tell for sure. thanks guys.