Quote Originally Posted by Spankenstyne View Post
As for frozen fish, I'm so paranoid about thiaminase I stick to trout or salmon fillets and just cut them into worm sized strips and freeze them skin on & all. Then I'll just defrost enough for the feeding and cut into bite sized pieces to avoid food battles, and sprinkle a little multivitamin with B1 on them. I had been using the gelatin suspensions but found that I didn't need to, mine all will eat the fish with vitamins sprinkled on so it saves me from having to make the stuff.

The problems I run into with silversides is the confusion on proper ID. There are fish they commonly call silversides which are actually smelt & also silversides that aren't smelt. Pond smelt are fine but other smelt aren't... So to be safe I've avoided them so far. One of the grocers here gets in nice big cheap bags of whole small silversides & smelt (with no species labeled) but without knowing exactly what species they are I don't want to risk it. There's too much overlap with the common names

I know the substrate thread turned into yet another feeding discussion, but I guess that's how conversations go.

There's really no need to get paranoid over thiaminase containing fish. You simply want to avoid them, steer clear, if you will. A snake, that gets a varied diet of foods containing plenty of B1 and calcium is not likely to suffer from the dreaded disease if it gets a gut full of thiamnase-laden fish now and then. It was whole frogs, night crawlers, tadpoles, (all found plentiful in the habitat where I got my concinnus) and yes, even red snapper and goldfish when I didn't know any better. The snakes also got a powdered vitamin supplement containing plenty of thiamine about once a month.

They lived 20 years and reached about 3-3.4 feet. Never saw any symptoms. Unless you're feeding them almost exlusively on strips of fish meat and worms, you really don't need to go all out on the vitamins. Overdosing can do much harm.

If your snake eats pinkes, and you have a good source, then there's really no need to supplement their lighter meals of fish and worms at all.

I wouldn't be paranoid about an occasional "bad" fish in their diet but I would certainly avoid it if possible.