have you ever been bitten by one of your fish???

[Magnum Man]

a couple of my mature silver dollars have noticeable “pearly whites” maybe more visible because of all the pothos roots they have been eating lately… this made me think about this question… as a kid, and young man, I had piranhas for many years… back then you could buy them at the dime store… not knowing any better, and lacking in proper aquarium tools, I always caught them with my hands, to transfer to a bucket on cleaning day… back then I fed chicken livers, and a 100% water change, and tank cleaning was a regular weekly routine… I was given a group of adult fish, that could have easily taken off a teenage finger… but they never bit me??? then one day, a new one, I just bought for a quarter , that was the size of a nickel, bit me when I was scooping it out of it’s small tank, it locked it’s jaws, and wouldn’t let go… finally after shaking my hand up and down vigorously, it flew off somewhere out in the grass… the pain was much higher than one would expect for a blood draw pin prick sized wound… after that I switched to a short handled fishing net… I may have tried a big aquarium net 1st, but remember that getting shredded… certainly made sense to catch them with my bare hands…

over the years I’ve acquired a big pile of aquarium nets of several sizes , but I still tend to put my hand over the top of the nets, to keep fish from jumping out…

I’ll be moving those adult silver dollars to a 250 gallon this year, and seeing those pearly whites, made me remember getting bit all those years ago…

I have panda garra, that will come and sit on the back of my hands, if I’m working in the tank, but haven’t felt fish tooth since that dime store piranha…

I’ve had large cichlids like oscar’s that would bite at me, and breeding pairs of convict cichlids… but nothing else that ever latched on… any of you guys???

flashing a toothy grin ( or warning )

 

[GaryE]

I've been stabbed and envenomated by catfish spines - you quickly run hot water on the wound and the venom is neutralized. It still hurts a bit.

Nip and nibbles, yes, but I actively dislike large fish predator species, so I never bother with them. I've seen some good cuts on others though.

When I was a kid I saw the hand of a guy who had been careless handling a very large northern pike. Not a pet, but it got a little revenge on him.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have SAEs try to eat the :hair: algae on the back of my hand. It tickled. I have has Amano shrimp try to do the same. But they have tiny claws and they pinch. You can tell when they do it as it feels like a tiny pin prick.

 

[MattW]

Not had my own fish do it yet. However, when I was a kid, I'd go crab fishing in Cornwall. I did manage to have my hand pierced by a Lesser weever. The venom caused a couple of hours of pain, plus the little bugger got my mackerel bait as well!

 

[fishorama]

Our CA cichlids thought arm hair was worms. They pulled hard! & especially liked my husband's furrier arm hair. No actual bites but maybe a few red fish hickeys.

 

[Boundava]

My eel, Nebula likes to test fingers to make sure they aren't tasty worms or shrimp. Tiramisu my tire track likes to do the same but she's twice the size.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I forgot one more fish. When my DD black angels were spawning in my community 45 gal. the eggs were getting eaten. They were spawning on the big leaf anubias. So I decided to pull the leaf filled with eggs. They were not happy about that and the male attacked my hand. It was not painful. But I had to admire that angel dad having no fear and attacking my hand/arm which dwarfed him.

 

[Herpin Man]

There is a small river that flows through my property in Northern Minnesota. Whenever I take a dip, the Northern chubs in the river nibble on my legs.
I'm evidently a prey item.

 

[Back in the fold]

Been bitten hard by an Oscar once . A big Oscar . It didn’t really hurt but it sure got my attention .

 

[gimme30]

I've been bitten by oscars too. Had a particularly nasty Rocio octofasciata that would attack anything in the tank including my arm. On the salty side I've had a triggerfish gnaw on me. Also a normally very tame snowflake eel I fed by hand would clamp down on a finger every now and then. I know he did it on purpose. He's the only one that ever drew blood.

 

[Back in the fold]

I've been bitten by oscars too.

Oscars are cool fish . They’re probably one of the few aquarium fish that could be an actual pet . The one that got me didn’t do it out of meanness , it was more like walking by a cat that reaches out and slaps you as you walk by . Just a little “ Hey there Buddy , do you see me now “ kind of a fun thing . I watched him like a hawk after that . If I kept eye contact he didn’t bother me . Some Oscar’s can be petted and will eat from your hand .

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I've had shell dwellers nip at me, that was more amusing than threatening.
However I have been bitten by a bigger fish.
Years ago I worked in a local pet store in their aquatics department. It was really a pet store, not a fish store. Because it was a pet store they were concentrating on puppies, kittens, birds, hedgehogs, and ferrets.

But they did have a fairly large aquatic department with about 60 to 70 tanks of fish for sale. I was hired because there was no one working with the fish and the tanks were in bad bad shape.


Most of my job consisted of tearing down tanks, washing gravel, scraping calcium deposits off the glass, getting them all clean and setting them back up to cycle again. I did this for weeks at a time to get all the tanks going again.

In the middle of the fish room were 8 125 gallon tanks. Stacked two tall and back to back. In one of these 125's lived a lone female Parachromis managuensis (jaguar cichlid) I assumed she was female as she had no sloped head, she was pretty streamlined, but she was good size for a female, at least 10 or 11 inches.

She had no decor in her tanks, just gravel and a sponge filter.

One day I took a break from all the cleaning of tanks and did some water changes on tanks that hadn't been tore down yet.

The moment I stuck that python in her tank she warped at light speed from one end of the tank right over to my hand and bit me.

Of course my initial reaction was shock and wtf? Did she just actually do that?

I put my hand back into vaccuum the gravel and WHAM! She hit me again.

That was 100% her tank and she defended her furf. Eventually we got a piece of egg crate to trap her on one side of the tank so we could do maintenance on the other side. Then it was just a matter of getting her re trapped in the clean side to then work on the dirty side.

I ended up loving that fish. She had such a feisty personality. It taught me how big and aggressive some CA Cichlids can be. I never got mad at her, she was following instincts.

 

[Back in the fold]

I've had shell dwellers nip at me, that was more amusing than threatening.
However I have been bitten by a bigger fish.
Years ago I worked in a local pet store in their aquatics department. It was really a pet store, not a fish store. Because it was a pet store they were concentrating on puppies, kittens, birds, hedgehogs, and ferrets.

But they did have a fairly large aquatic department with about 60 to 70 tanks of fish for sale. I was hired because there was no one working with the fish and the tanks were in bad bad shape.


Most of my job consisted of tearing down tanks, washing gravel, scraping calcium deposits off the glass, getting them all clean and setting them back up to cycle again. I did this for weeks at a time to get all the tanks going again.

In the middle of the fish room were 8 125 gallon tanks. Stacked two tall and back to back. In one of these 125's lived a lone female Parachromis managuensis (jaguar cichlid) I assumed she was female as she had no sloped head, she was pretty streamlined, but she was good size for a female, at least 10 or 11 inches.

She had no decor in her tanks, just gravel and a sponge filter.

One day I took a break from all the cleaning of tanks and did some water changes on tanks that hadn't been tore down yet.

The moment I stuck that python in her tank she warped at light speed from one end of the tank right over to my hand and bit me.

Of course my initial reaction was shock and wtf? Did she just actually do that?

I put my hand back into vaccuum the gravel and WHAM! She hit me again.

That was 100% her tank and she defended her furf. Eventually we got a piece of egg crate to trap her on one side of the tank so we could do maintenance on the other side. Then it was just a matter of getting her re trapped in the clean side to then work on the dirty side.

I ended up loving that fish. She had such a feisty personality. It taught me how big and aggressive some CA Cichlids can be. I never got mad at her, she was following instincts.

Whoa ! That’s wild ! Did she draw blood ?

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Whoa ! That’s wild ! Did she draw blood ?

She broke my skin, didn't really bleed much.

 

[Back in the fold]

She broke my skin, didn't really bleed much.

Now just imagine if you were a little G.I. Joe sized frogman in there !