Do you wear gloves when working in your aquarium?

"using the whole fist, doc?"

plastic baggies from the produce aisle are good too. no powders and cheeep.

i'm always concerned about slimeys, bristleworms, and other nastys just waiting to leap out and bite a chunk of flesh when i reach into the rock. gives me the heebeejeebees!

generally, i wash/rinse my hands before reaching in tho.

I was attacked by a bristle worm the other day when changing the filter floss in the sump of my 90g. OUCH! I literally have to pull it off of my finger... nasty little buggers

no

depends on what part of the tank i am working in

Wait, are we supposed to?
I go through everything with just my bare hands, but if there is reason to suspect danger, i suppose i could don a pair of cheap latex medical gloves. (I have a whole box of them.)

if i think that i have the possiblitity of touching something other than lr, i'll put on a glove. if im cutting, i'll put on a glove. if i put my hand in the tank, i'll rinse in hot water up to my elbows. i try and not put my hand into the tank if i can avoid it.

I always wash and rinse well before & after putting my hands in my tanks. I use liquid anti-bacterial soap beacause it rinses off well and doesn't leave a residue.

never used gloves in my life:teehee:

Sometimes.....
If I am just flipping a snail over or fixing a coral, I don't.

But if I am going to be touching the rock, I do.

I never have worn gloves while messing around in mine. I just rinse them well with super hot water.

you guys are bananas. My girlfriend and I both wear heavy duty latex gloves when the bugs and worms came out of the rocks. I know they are good but not on the skin! yuck!

I've never worn gloves either. I say, if the fish can touch it then so can I! But, I do thoroughly wash my hands before putting them in the tank. And I do get a little scared when reaching into my refugium...I never know whats growing in there.

I dont ever wear gloves but i do wash my hands before i put them in the tank.

proping zoos=GLOVES
btw, this should be called the MONTHLY poll~

Not enough time for gloves, I'd be forever taking them off and on! LOL

I rinse the upper arms with DI. Gloves are for mommys boys with O.C.D..

I don't.....But after reading the following thread I'm strongly
considering it.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...threadid=414029

Pros dont need to put on gloves.

um, actually i think it is the pros that realize the need for gloves. some serious things can enter the skin through a rough cuticle or shortly cut nail. not just to keep the fish and coral healthy by not adding bad stuff to the water on your dirty skin, but to keep the little microscopic parasites out of your body that can cause damage like that poor guys thumb.

I have seen too many bad things happen to people who don't protect their skin. wear gloves and be better safe than sorry. even if it is to right a snail or fix a coral. I reached in to fix a power head a day after putting in new zoas, and got a terrible rash all over my hand and arm. no cuts or nothing, just the palytoxin really playing havoc on my skin.

it depend for me also on what i am doing in the tank

Proffessionals use other people to do the chores! LOL

^*^ so true

I had someone type this for me! LOL..... OK maybe not! lol

I thought reaching in the tank was like sex....."No balloon, no party...

Nope never a glove here! Just Bareback

Jim

im new, and kinda skared of what i saw. if i got a cut or a scratch, gloves go on, no doupt. who knows whats in there?

I wear gloves. they are the powder free latex that you can buy very cheaply in the grocery store in the first aide section.

I'm surprised at these answers! You should ALWAYS wear gloves, every time, no exceptions. Not only is it unhealthy for your inhabitants, but a lot of people, myself included, have been rushed to a nearby emergency room for getting poked by "something" in their tank.

I bet you'll all be wearing gloves after it happens to you once, either that or selling your aquariums.

For shame! For shame! You're naughty little reefers!

No gloves here. Anything I'd be affraid of would go through a latex glove...

Question, if your worried about toxins in the water wouldn't you need something that covers farther up than a latex glove? Maybe I'm not thinking of the right type of latex glove...

Exactly what kind of gloves do people use? I'm new to saltwater and I just finished aquascaping my tank last weekend, got a few cuts and scrapes, no sign of infection thank god. However I have see a bad case where a fellow hobbyist lost partial movement in her arm from an infection she got while working on her tanks.

Now besides infections from cuts, what other dangers are there? I certainly don't want to pull my hand out to find a worm dangling from it... I guess you guys use thick gloves?

Thanks
Giancarlo

I don't wear gloves but I always wash my hands before and after.... Oh wait was this the "do you wear gloves when you go pee?" poll?

i think that gloves should always be worn just because you never know what could happen. i'm even thinking about getting some sort of extra long tweezers or something so i keep my hands out of my tank as much as possible. i was freeked out by a rather long bristle worm that attempted to crawl up my arm as i moved the rock that he was under.

since i read this, i wear gloves >_<. but the water flows over the top and into my hand any way...

err i wouldn't go with the 'extra long tweezers'. It could damage things in your tank. Hands are much more safe for your tank, but be sure that you wear those elasticy ones so that the water cant go over the top of the glove like mine does.. I need some proper ones.

I wear gloves the type used for giving enemas.

I try to stick with using tongs for everything...but if I need a little more 'oomph' to move a whole rock or something, I will spy it out to see how clean it is and free from buggers. If it is pretty safe looking (I wont hurt anything and it wont hurt me) I will reach in...otherwise I get out the coralife gloves.

I put on gloves almost every time I put my hands into the tank. Both because I dont what what ever is on my hands getting into the water, and I dont want what is in the water getting into my hands. I found this one nice pair of nertile long cuff gloves that I have been used for about a year now with my 2.5 gallon, they are long enough that I can put my hand as far in as it will fit and not get water in the glove. When messing around in the 15 gallon I put on the glove and then a ruberband at the cuff to keep the water out, it works quite well and I would recomend it.

Jerome

Whoo! pretty colors!!!
good to hear youre doing fine

never used gloves...all my bristleworms would go right through them anyways. as far as infection....just wash your hands with hot water afterwards to clean it out, and denature the proteins in the bristleworm or zoo toxin.

ever brush by a frogspawn with a cut on your hand?

holy $#!^ :*(

yup, I just proved that gloves go on any time. I had just gotten an order of frags the other day and last night I saw my ric flipped over I reached in just to flip him back(damn snails). Then I felt tingling then burning in my index finger. I turned my hand over and found a bright red hairy worm munching on my digit like he had a finger fetish. I cried like a sissy and soaked my had in windex and warm water. F**in animal...DIE!!!! I grabbed some joes juice and smothered him in it. Maybe atleast he felt uncomfortable..yeah right. sucker!

i never wear gloves my hands are as tough as nails, i work at a lumber yard no stinkin animal can hurt me and i am immune to bacteria

what are gloves? JK

Gloves?? Yea right, come on guys.

The maintenance checklist is long enough without having to remember to put gloves on. The day I remember gloves would be the day I forget and dump one of my ammonia testing tubes back into the tank, then I wouldn't need gloves now would I. :|

I'll think about gloves when I upgrade to lion fish or morrays!

If my hands are contaminated with motor oil, I will use gloves, and for other reasons I am to lazy to type.

i think it's a good idea when you're doing propigating just because the coral is getting cut open and spilling its juices all over the place. its probably at this time that they release the most toxins as well. yeah, i needa get around to doing that more often... hmm... to glove or not to glove?

Only time I ever where gloves is if I have an open wound, most corals with the exception of leathers can give you some pretty emmense pain and infections in an open cut...

I have had previous run in's with hammers, an elagence and a few different other lps...

So heed my warning...
also, some people have allergic reactions to corals, and sadly the only way to find out if you are allergic is to get stung... BE CAREFULL!!!

Seriously, I reached back behind my elegance to grab an overturned snail and wham... just got lucky that it twisted toward me, almost like it wanted some of my hand. I had little white dots from burns all over my hand where the stingers got me.

It would be a good idea, espically when i propogate, but i am very carefull and too lazy to go out and buy some