Wear Gloves! I've heard it many times before, but never paid attention. I only wore gloves to clean my skimmer cups or when I was fragging zoanthids -never for cleaning the tank. Well, I will now always wear gloves. Here is my story.
Monday afternoon/night I worked on my large reef tank. I've been really busy at work the past couple of months and the aquariums have been a bit neglected. As a result, 2 of my acros were suffering from RTN. So, I made the time to finally work on the tank. I cleaned all the powerheads, cleaned the sump, put fresh carbon in, and did 2 small water changes and picked out algae. I remember bumbing my hand into one of my acros and breaking of a couple of its tips. Somewhere along the way - maybe when I bumped into the acro - I got some small scratches on my fingers and hand. I wasn't concerned it always happens. So, I did the usual thing and when I finished working on the tank Monday night I scrubbed my hands and put antibiotic ointment on the cuts. Well, Monday night I woke up with my finger throbbing with pain. By Tuesday afternoon it had become swollen and the pain was intense. Luckily I work with an ER doctor. I stopped by his office at the end of the day and he prescribed an oral antibiotic. I started taking it last night. So far, no improvement.
So, the moral of the story - WEAR GLOVES!
An interesting note is that last night I was looking at my tank and noticed the RTN/bleaching was affecting other corals as well
- some of the acros, my montipora digitata, and maybe even my frogspawn So, I dug out Borneman's Aquarium Corals book to do some research (something I should have done sooner) and on page 382 he mentions that one person did a test of the water in the bags of RTNing corals and found high levels of the bacteria vibrio vulnificus. That person suggested that this may be what causes corals to RTN. Boreman tended not to believe in that theory, but I found it particulary interesting given that of all the times I've scraped my hand in my tank this is the only time that I've ever developed an infection. Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria that effects humans as well and my doctor mentioned it could possibly be a vibrio bacteria.
So, now I have a painful swollen finger and can only watch as my corals die off.
So, WEAR THOSE GLOVES!
Sherry
Oh, this morning I finally realized what may have led to the corals RTNing in the first place - a heat spike I had about a month ago when our AC failed.
Monday afternoon/night I worked on my large reef tank. I've been really busy at work the past couple of months and the aquariums have been a bit neglected. As a result, 2 of my acros were suffering from RTN. So, I made the time to finally work on the tank. I cleaned all the powerheads, cleaned the sump, put fresh carbon in, and did 2 small water changes and picked out algae. I remember bumbing my hand into one of my acros and breaking of a couple of its tips. Somewhere along the way - maybe when I bumped into the acro - I got some small scratches on my fingers and hand. I wasn't concerned it always happens. So, I did the usual thing and when I finished working on the tank Monday night I scrubbed my hands and put antibiotic ointment on the cuts. Well, Monday night I woke up with my finger throbbing with pain. By Tuesday afternoon it had become swollen and the pain was intense. Luckily I work with an ER doctor. I stopped by his office at the end of the day and he prescribed an oral antibiotic. I started taking it last night. So far, no improvement.
So, the moral of the story - WEAR GLOVES!
An interesting note is that last night I was looking at my tank and noticed the RTN/bleaching was affecting other corals as well
- some of the acros, my montipora digitata, and maybe even my frogspawn So, I dug out Borneman's Aquarium Corals book to do some research (something I should have done sooner) and on page 382 he mentions that one person did a test of the water in the bags of RTNing corals and found high levels of the bacteria vibrio vulnificus. That person suggested that this may be what causes corals to RTN. Boreman tended not to believe in that theory, but I found it particulary interesting given that of all the times I've scraped my hand in my tank this is the only time that I've ever developed an infection. Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria that effects humans as well and my doctor mentioned it could possibly be a vibrio bacteria.So, now I have a painful swollen finger and can only watch as my corals die off.
So, WEAR THOSE GLOVES!
Sherry
Oh, this morning I finally realized what may have led to the corals RTNing in the first place - a heat spike I had about a month ago when our AC failed.
