I want to give my two a more varied diet - they've been rodent only since I got them just over two years ago but seem to get fat quite easily, so I'm thinking of feeding 50/50 rodents/fish.
The only fish that I are readily available to me are frozen lancefish. I've tried both snakes with a couple and they take them no problem so that's the first hurdle out of the way.

My question is - will vitamin supplements alone eliminate the dangers posed by thiaminase?

I've read that heating the fish to 80C for 5 minutes destroys thiaminase, but I've also read that the fish shouldn't be fed cooked, which is what this method effectively does.

So am I ok to just use supplements?

Does thimaminase destroy vitamin B1 just in the food item, or after it has been ingested?
In other words, does thiaminase destroy existing B1 in the snakes body?

Should I dust both fish and rodents? Or just the fish? Or is it better to just put vitamins in the water?

Should I be following the directs on the vitamin packaging, or giving extra to compensate for thiaminase?

And can anyone tell me if there are any early warning signs of thiamin deficiency? Or any signs that the vitamin dosage is too high?

Apologies for all the questions - I have read up as much as I can on this but most sources simply say to avoid fish that contains thiaminase - which due to limited options and limited space (breeding my own isn't an option) is something I can't really do.

Anyway, hope all that made sense and any advice would be much appreciated,

regards,

Mark.