Feeding Keelback

[gillsy]

Yeah i'm trying to hunt down a fish farm that will send some cheaper stuff through.

 

[killimike]

Do you feed enough that it would be necessary? Other option is to breed your own... Tho the easy options like livebearers are a bit small.

 

[gillsy]

Livebearers are a bit small, and I'm in an apartment it's more room than anything else.

I love to stick a pair of convict cichlids in with them, they breed like rabbits problem is, theyd probably kill the snakes protecting their young!

I always have fish in the tank, they just take them when they're hungry, colubrids have a higher food requirement than pythons and they are active 75% if the time,

 

[killimike]

Ahhh, I didn't realise you kept fish in the tank! That is very cool.

Convicts mightn't be a bad option if you were gonna pick something to breed separately, you're right, I think they would be way to big and aggro to have in the enclosure with the keelback.

 

[gillsy]

Big they're only around 7cm but they have an attitude of a fish 10 times their size lol.

 

[killimike]

I'm sure I've seen em bigger than 7cm, but yeah, the main issue is not their size :O

 

[syeph8]

Well, fish generally aren't considered vertibrates when it comes to feeding live... Don't know why they are intelligent and have memories contrary to popular belief.

Most colubrids are fed fish at least some point throughout their life, to get them started. Alot of keelbacks were originally Legally Wildcaught out of Reedy's Reptiles in the NT so I don't see a problem giving them their natural diet. As they are very flighty and sometimes hard to even get near to offer rodents.

I do think it is double standards to complain about cuddly vertebrates being live fed, but to overlook it when it happens to the less cute ones But I don't see a problem with it myself, provided it is necessary and not dangerous to the predator.

I am nowhere near a class two licence, but these guys are on the wishlist for a few years down the track

it is less of a moral issue (for me anyway) and more of a risk issue when it comes to live feeding. When live feeding a goldfish to a snake you are not too concerned that the goldfish is going to bite a chunk out of your snake. Live feeding rats and mice, however, does present a real danger to your animal. I hope this clears up the water a little for you on that topic.

Nah I feed then solely on fish, i try to vary from goldfish because of the "thya...soemthing" chemical in goldfish.

I do if i can get a hold of striped marsh frog taddies, and use silver perch, aus rainbows, or any other fish on special at the local aquarium store.

I'm not too fussed about breeding them, so as long as they are healthly I'm ok with that.

It is an enzyme called thiaminase that occurs in excess in the carp family. the suffix "ase" generally represents an enzyme which breaks down the word preceding it. in this case, thiamine (vitamin B1). This means that long term consumption of carp could lead to a deficit in thiamine. a simple solution to protect against this would be vitamin supplements. gel caps or direct injection into the food would achieve this easily. the problem is accounting for hypervitaminaemia due to the snakes decreased ability to excrete excess ammounts of all of the other vitamins. This means that multivitamin powder becomes a bi-monthly ritual for me when feeding my tree snakes (who are on fish at the moment). it would be interesting to see how a snake would go at processing a human thiamine supplement.... I cant see why there would be any problems other than dose?

on another note, very jealous of your keelback. have been on my "future list" for a while now

Sye

 

[killimike]

Thanks for that Sye! Re live feeding, I am aware of the risk of harm when feeding rodents, and lack of said when feeding fish. I was just commenting that people get up in arms about the cruelty aspect of feeding live rodents, including telling people it's illegal, that they are sadists etc, but not so with fish. It's just interesting. Now those convict cichlids might try to fight back....

The idea of a thiamine supplement is interesting, but like you say, I would have no idea about dosing.... might not be too hard to work out tho. At the levels of general supplementation you are giving now, do you have concerns about that vitamin toxicity you mentioned?

Other option might be to use another fish like gillsy mentioned. Is it just goldfish and carp that have high levels of thiaminase I wonder, or all cyprinids or . . .? No reason goldfish should be the fish of choice is there? Other than availability For GTS, which seem smaller maybe?, guppies or platies might be an easily sourceable or breedable option, if they have less thiabrominase

Forgive my running on, tt is cool to find an intersection between my interest in fish and reptiles... even if it is just one being fed to the other!

 

[Amazing Amazon]

We sell keelbacks at the shop when available. We find by feeding nutritious foods (like gut loading) to the feeder fish the goodness is passed onto the snake.

 

[syeph8]

i wrote a really clever reply to this post by killmike... but i was just informed that my message needs to be at least 1 character long and then it deleted it... i also make sure i get the higher quality flakes for my feeders in the hope that gut loading will play a role. i was actually wondering quite recently whether blood worms or brine occasionally would have an even more positive effect

Thanks for that Sye! Re live feeding, I am aware of the risk of harm when feeding rodents, and lack of said when feeding fish. I was just commenting that people get up in arms about the cruelty aspect of feeding live rodents, including telling people it's illegal, that they are sadists etc, but not so with fish. It's just interesting. Now those convict cichlids might try to fight back....

The idea of a thiamine supplement is interesting, but like you say, I would have no idea about dosing.... might not be too hard to work out tho. At the levels of general supplementation you are giving now, do you have concerns about that vitamin toxicity you mentioned?

Other option might be to use another fish like gillsy mentioned. Is it just goldfish and carp that have high levels of thiaminase I wonder, or all cyprinids or . . .? No reason goldfish should be the fish of choice is there? Other than availability For GTS, which seem smaller maybe?, guppies or platies might be an easily sourceable or breedable option, if they have less thiabrominase

Forgive my running on, tt is cool to find an intersection between my interest in fish and reptiles... even if it is just one being fed to the other!

now to remember all my intelligent comments made before the "great delete". ill give the dot point version....

1. i am not too concerned about hypervitaminaemia in my snakes due to the fact that i use zoo-med reptivite as my multivitamin source and only inject it into the food once every two months. if i reconstituted from a human multivitamin powder, this would be another story entirely.

2. just had a great idea! on the back of the reptivite bottle it has a relative dosage of B1 per kg. this means i could work out a dose from human B1 supplements if i had a scale that could measure in increments smaller than 1kg at a time (i would need something that measured grams down to 2 decimals i think for an accurate enough measurement... somehow i dont think these bathroom scales are going to cut it...)

3. I am under the impression that excess thiaminase is only in the carp family. dottyback from this site is the guy i ask when i need fish info and he would almost certainly be able to answer this question for you.

4. I have noticed that the "cruelty crew", as i like to call them, generally act up when an animal is being killed that can make sound. fish dont scream so they dont kick up a fuss, insects dont scream so no1 kicks up a fuss etc etc etc. rats and mice do their squeak thing so they get more attention from the cruelty crew. i stand by the fact that its just plain dumb practice to feed live due to the risk to your snake.

5. i talked about exsanguination of fish to be sold commercially that has probably been eaten by people who would consider this practice cruel.. to which i asked the question "would it be more cruel to eat a fish alive because its the only thing available for you to eat (as is the case for tree snakes, keelbacks etc), or would it be more cruel to bleed a fish to death because you didnt feel like lasagne tonight?"

Sye

 

[gillsy]

I'm going to keep my response short lol, thiaminase is only found in carp.

Hence why I'm trying to find a silver perch fingerling supplier but they are only available for a short period of the year.

I'm going to see if I can find a shop that has small barbs or platy's as feeder fish.

 

[syeph8]

a few places here have barbs as feeders but might not be big enough in a year or so for your keelback silver perch is a good idea. down here getting trout fingerlings would be good too.

 

[beersdave]

they are on my wish list!!!

 

[Tsubakai]

gillsy - try livefish . com for your feeders. You can buy a bulk lot of feeder fish (usually about 100 at a time) that are usually platy's or swordtails that are not pretty enough for the pet trade. They pretty much guarantee they are safe as feeders (no chemicals etc), quite cheap and pretty good to deal with.

 

[syeph8]

i like the look of the 4-5cm silver perch for $55... i wonder if the free delivery applies to melbourne?

 

[Tsubakai]

i like the look of the 4-5cm silver perch for $55... i wonder if the free delivery applies to melbourne?

Free delivery everywhere on the bulk deals. Only just looked at the site again for the first time in months and there are lots of good deals in the bulk buy section with the 4-5cm silver and spangled perch looking like the next purchase for my turtle tank once mine finish knocking off their current tankmates.

 

[gillsy]

Yeah, I need to find someone in Sydney that will buy some with me. I just don't have the room to buy them in bulk like that.

[video=youtube;YsBsmwlHuas]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsBsmwlHuas[/video]

 

[TigerCoastal]

gillsy, i love the keelbacks they are a definite on my wish-list. How big is the enclosure you have them in and roughly whats the water:land ratio?

 

[gillsy]

I have them in a 4ft tank, I'm about to move so will adjust the tank slightly when I move to make the water deeper. This will enable me to deeper gravel in the water and more plants.

They are in a 4ft tank, bigger the better tho they are very active snakes. There is no 'set' land ratio, but they do rest on dry land. All I ensure is that where they rest they have access to completely dry land to dry out. These snakes are very aquatic but I like the idea of them drying out to ensure they don't get any form of scale rot.

I hear they are very good climbers, so even if it was completely water and they had access to a hollow log etc out of the water that will do. But I'm going to put my Gold Tree Snake in with them when I build up the 'brachery'

 

[TigerCoastal]

Thanks for that gillsy. i have a mate that makes custom fishtanks so when i finally have the money for it will get him to build me a tank that i can incorporate into a larger enclosure.