What gloves should you use for an aquarium?

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I ordered those nuclear green palys, and I’m just wondering what kind of gloves would be safe for the aquarium?

[Clown79]

I use none powdered vinyl or nitrile gloves.

 

I even have armpit length nitrile pond gloves but I'm super sensitive, anything sets my skin off.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

20 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I use none powdered vinyl or nitrile gloves.

 

I even have armpit length nitrile pond gloves but I'm super sensitive, anything sets my skin off.

Oh ok, I might get one of those, I’m a little nervous about these palys😂.

[MrObscura]

I was using non powdered nitrile, but keep forgetting to order more so I've just been doing things without gloves. Might just not bother with them going foward. 

 

 

[jservedio]

I've never used gloves inside the tank and I've got plenty of zoas, palys, and nems. The only time I put on gloves is when fragging zoas and palys outside of the tank and I just use nitrile gloves. And that's only because I'm cutting into them and mashing them - I never wear gloves when gluing down new zoas in my tank.

 

If you get clowns, they will be a much, much bigger issue than any threat from poisoning - they will draw blood every time once they are big enough and they'll jump out of the water just to go for soft areas. They will ignore the calluses on your hands and fingers and go straight for the thin skin on your inner wrist and forearm. Webbing between your fingers is a favorite for them too.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

12 minutes ago, jservedio said:

I've never used gloves inside the tank and I've got plenty of zoas, palys, and nems. The only time I put on gloves is when fragging zoas and palys outside of the tank and I just use nitrile gloves. And that's only because I'm cutting into them and mashing them - I never wear gloves when gluing down new zoas in my tank.

 

If you get clowns, they will be a much, much bigger issue than any threat from poisoning - they will draw blood every time once they are big enough and they'll jump out of the water just to go for soft areas. They will ignore the calluses on your hands and fingers and go straight for the thin skin on your inner wrist and forearm. Webbing between your fingers is a favorite for them too.

I have 2 clowns, one is a female, and she is actually very docile to me, she doesn’t even pay any attention to me when I put my hand in there. But I also have a gold nugget maroon clown who always goes after me, but I have a wrist band on my arm, and he for some reason only attacks the wrist band, it’s weird😂.

The female is maybe 2 and a half inches, and she just ignores me.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

If I have palys in the tank, and I have a cut on my hand, but I don’t touch the palys, only the saltwater touch’s the cut, could I still get poisoned?

[jservedio]

6 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I have 2 clowns, one is a female, and she is actually very docile to me, she doesn’t even pay any attention to me when I put my hand in there. But I also have a gold nugget maroon clown who always goes after me, but I have a wrist band on my arm, and he for some reason only attacks the wrist band, it’s weird😂.

Mine were totally fine until they started spawning. Once that started, they got far, far more aggressive.

4 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

If I have palys in the tank, and I have a cut on my hand, but I don’t touch the palys, only the saltwater touch’s the cut, could I still get poisoned?

No. If you've got other nasty stuff in there like vibrio or some other nasty bacteria, you can get that.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I don’t think that I have anything to nasty in the tank, I’ve had a ton of cuts and ate food right after putting my hands in the tank, I’ve never gotten sick from my tank.

[MrObscura]

Speaking of clowns, I spent all night making my tank bare bottom and my female clown wasn't happy. She pecks at me all the time, but it doesn't hurt. This time she was pissed, it actually hurt. 

[jservedio]

40 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I don’t think that I have anything to nasty in the tank, I’ve had a ton of cuts and ate food right after putting my hands in the tank, I’ve never gotten sick from my tank.

That is a really terrible idea - you should always thoroughly wash your hands after they have been in the tank with soap and hot water and peroxide any cuts your fish or rocks may leave. There are TONS of horribly nasty bacteria that can live in your tank, whether the tank is healthy or not, and they can cause some particularly nasty infections in humans.

 

Try on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_marinum to see if that sounds good. If that's not enough to make you wash your hands, baybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrio_vulnificus sounds like a good one to get.

 

Edit: There are far more confirmed cases of flesh eating bacteria from home aquarium than there are of palytoxin poisoning. Good ol' necrotizing fasciitis. There was a study last year to see how widespread V. Vulnificus was in aquariums. They tested water samples from 6 public aquariums in China in a wide variety of tanks and found that V. Vulnifcus was found in 100% of the aquariums and in 44% of every sample they took. In addition, they found a few other nasty strains of Vibrio. Just food for though, but V. Vulnificus has a mortality rate of about 25% when it enters through a cut.

[Psychosis]

I went for years without gloves. Then I lifted a 20lb piece of rock with a 10" bristle worm tucked away right where I found purchase. Now I use the thick armpit length gloves when i can't see where my fingers are going, and otherwise don't I worry about it. Took weeks for my body to work out all of the bristles.

 

Definitely wash your hands before and after, if nothing else than to minimize oils going in/nasties coming out.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I didn’t realize that was in our tanks, I’m actually scared now😨. Gonna be washing my hands every time now. Gonna wear gloves when handling my corals also.

[jservedio]

14 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I didn’t realize that was in our tanks, I’m actually scared now😨. Gonna be washing my hands every time now. Gonna wear gloves when handling my corals also.

People aren't dropping dead left and right or losing appendages, but it is stupid to not just wash your hands. You wash your hands after you poop (I hope), so why not wash your hands after touching fish poop (plus god only knows what else)?

 

If you decide not to and end up winning the infection lottery, you won't even end up on Monsters Inside Me or Medical Mysteries because both shows already had separate cases featuring V. Vulnificus infections contracted from home aquariums.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

That’s actually very scary, gonna be more careful for now on.

[Coinee]

Definitely wash your hands AT LEAST. If you're brave, google for "Mycobacterium marinum infections". A guy I know on a local reef group got an infection when he cut his finger on a piece of rock. His hand swelled up, his fingernail fell off and it took a couple weeks to start to decrease in swelling after lots of antibiotics. 

 

I wear gloves to keep whats on my hands out of my tank, and whats in my tank off my hands. 

[Clown79]

Paly's and palytoxin is not the only issue, especially with open wounds.

 

Bacteria can cause infection, you could accidentally touch a bristle worm(not fun), can have reactions from corals which many release stuff into the water, even scrapes from hard corals can cause issues.