Reef aquarium hobby - safety with children around

[hollep84]

Hello! I have been keeping a reef aquarium for 13 years now. I have up-sized and down sized a couple times. At this point I have a small tank - 16 gallon Biocube with only soft corals (pulsating Xenia, tree coral, toadstool leather, Daisy coral, and green star polyps). No fish. The system is happy and maintains nicely with water changes every so often, and routine carbon filter changes plus some dosing of reef carbonate to keep dKH steady. The coral is always open and growing/multiplying. Now that I have two babies, I ask myself if this is a safe hobby to have? What are your thoughts? I have read horror stories about people’s family’s becoming ill due to toxic coral tanks. I am always as safe as possible when cleaning the tank, but I am not an expert and I worry. I am considering giving my tank away to someone who would enjoy it - I could always restart the hobby later on. Thoughts anyone???

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Welcome to reef2Reef!

IMO, the safety concerns are primarily chemical and electrical.
It is easy to avoid toxic corals, IMO.

 

[taricha]

IMO, The most dangerous things near a reef tank are the most dangerous things in any house - the electrical stuff. It's heightened because we have a bunch of conductive water near our electrical stuff.
(As soon as my son was old enough to carry a gallon jug, he picked up a jug with saltwater in it and poured it on my rats' nest of power cords beside my tank. I was glad it was on GFCI. He's got this natural instinct for chaos.)