Do you stick your hands in your reef tank?

[Tamberav]

People dose bleach in their tank. I wash my hands and don't worry about it.

 

[Blacktip]

For the 2 years, I used to siphon the sand and blow the rocks every 2 weeks. In the third year, the corals covered most of the rocks, so I was siphoning the sand only. In the forth year, the coral grow so much that it was difficult to siphon the sand. Now, I don't put my hand in, unless I have to.

 

[brandon429]

How is the waste getting removed in the sand, is this not a tipping point buildup

 

[Gw2kpro]

My hands go into the tank several times a week. Never after I've been eating flamin' hot cheetos, though.

 

[brandon429]

For the last twenty + years and up to this day the majority of the hobby equates accessibility/hands in with instability.

This has resulted in lost tanks to the tune of millions of animals and dollars/rampant invasions, thousands of tanks in full invasion status needing help, to this day. What the sages should be teaching is how access causes stability, and they should be teaching accurate science behind surface area control so that people don’t feel direct access for cleaning, target kill, is some sort of luck lottery. We can access our reefs using certain steps reliably, daily, and the skill is the first notion a new reef keeper should be taught.

They should be taught the polar opposite of what they’re currently being taught about reef access...knowing when and how to place hands all the way in, to the bottom if required, creating accessibility and using that character to prevent any organism from ever taking over the investment. Today’s reefing is about us taking preps to not lose or waste any animals. in finding ways to design aquariums differently than prior decades, so we can lose and waste less, changing up access approach is first on the list

 

[stanleo]

Everyday when I put the nori on the clip for the tang. And I use my hands for everything. I don't use lotion and if I have been cleaning anything in the house I wash my hands first. I wash my hands when I go to the bathroom so if I just need to do something they go right in. I figure if by chance there is something on my hands that the carbon will take care of the minuscule contaminates that I might introduce. Heck, whenever I target feed the gorg I can't avoid the cleaner shrimp doing a little work on my hand. I haven't had any issues.

 

[B7Joe]

Not unnecessarily of course, but when tinkering and maintaining, yes. Like many others have said, I make sure my hands/arms are as clean as possible and try to do what I need to do all at once. I think the impact on any particular tank is all about dilution. The smaller the tank the greater the potential impact of contamination.

 

[Radman73]

At least weekly. I use a razor blade and extension handle for cleaning the glass. 30" deep tank though and it's not effective when using the full extension. So, to my elbows I go lol!.

 

[vogtn]

Along the same lines are people not more worried about harming themselves by not using gloves or forceps of some sort?

Random anecdote, but when I first started 3 months ago I built my tank using live rock from my LFS. They had a giant (~300gal) unlit tub of only live rock and circulating salt water. At the time I had a huge cut on my thumb from a cooking incident (tremor and knives don't mix well). Not knowing the dangers of infection or other critters that could be within I went ahead and just dug in, grabbing and moving pieces of live rock of various sizes all over.

I still cringe to this day about it, but I felt lucky to not to get any sort of infection. I could be over thinking this though.

 

[Streetcred]

In so far a practicable keep your hands out of the tank ... small amounts of chemicals on your skin (hand lotions, sun protection, etc) can be deadly to your small glass box. Sometimes your hands have to go in but wash your hands first in clean water ... no soap, it is 'pure' phosphate ;-)

 

[Shazbop07]

Only if I can't use the big tweezers, like if its a coral that's hard to grab

 

[FactoryKTMmotocross46]

Due to me biting the heck out of my nails, I try to use grabber, but I'll put aqua glove on if I have to stick more than my fingers in. That salt starts hurting my fingers almost instantly when I pull my hand out, I guess due to the water evaporating and leaving crystals where I bite.

 

[lapin]

I do hand feed my non-photosynthetic coral with a syringe and that requires hand in tank. I have an algae clip that I place 2 feet down in my tank. That requires hand in tank. I hand feed one of my shrimp...hand in tank. I use long long long tweezers to feed my nem. Because of where it is, my hand gets wet. I change out my filter sox so hand in sump. I have strainers for my overflow pipes. Wet hand again.
My tank is 5'x5'x3' deep

I make sure my hands are very clean, and make doubble sure I did not just put clorine in the pool or other stuff like that.

I do not touch my corals. They can bite and sting.

 

[Zeedawg]

I try not to, but it is inevitable.

I have some long tweezers for frag adjustments and I constructed a DIY 30” turkey baster for detritus removal....both tools seem to help keeping my hands out of the tank as (much as possible)....

 

[Gtank171]

Just like so many of you. I wash my hands and blow the sand bed at least twice a week(when I remember). I do notice that the tank does better when I keep my hands out of the tank.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

I try to not put my hands in the tank! I won’t do anything if I’ve touched gas, oils, cleaners, paint or solvents. I wash my hands, a lot. I wash after touching water since I’m worried about infection. I will touch coral when fragging. I haven’t had any coral retraction issues or rtn.

 

[Dreamoceanbig]

I practically live, breathe, and sleep in my reefs. Always have. I may as well be a fish.. in fact I often dream of shrinking down so I can go hang out in there and walk amongst my corals.

 

[120reefkeeper]

Do to my daily profession not wearing gloves could spell disaster. I wash twice and use gloves, but I rarely put even my gloved arms in the tanks.

 

[H3rm1tCr@b]

I try not to..

but it's mainly because the bristleworms. Have this fear of accidentally touching on when near my rock

Going to wear the thickest gloves I can find when moving the rock to my new tank.

I have been stung by them more than once, it isn't too bad it just burns a bit for a minute then it is a little irritated.

 

[Hollywoodwater617]

I try to keep my hands out of the tank especially when my Fingernails are done but if Im touching rocks or coral I’ll wear gloves for safety.