How Do You Clean Your Hands Before Working In The Tank?

[Fish_Mike]

I really want to know how others clean their hands to avoid contamination. I spend about 10 minutes running my hands under hot water and rubbing to the bone with clean paper towels.

Takes a while, and it's really annoying. So, how do you clean your hands?

 

[IovaykInD]

I don't go too crazy with that. Just a quick cold water wash, and my fish have been fine for almost half a year.

 

[Tolak]

I don't do anything special with my hands unless I have been working with something nasty right before. I work with ink, solvents, & machines all day long, wash up at work with a good industrial hand cleaner. After work I'll stick my hands straight in any tank without a thought. Never had a problem.

Tolak

 

[Ethos]

Yeah, I always wash my hands after I do some stuff in the tank never before. I don't think I ever handle stuff thats deadly to my aquarium inhabetents, except cleaning soulution, but I don't usually clean before I do stuff in my tanks. I mean, I pcik up my room when I clean my tanks, but there's nothing really in my room that could 'nuke' my aqurium.
(Did I use 'nuke' correctly? Its new to my vocabulary )

 

[newfishaddict]

I really want to know how others clean their hands to avoid contamination. I spend about 10 minutes running my hands under hot water and rubbing to the bone with clean paper towels.

Takes a while, and it's really annoying. So, how do you clean your hands?

To remove a high number of microorganisms from you hands and arms between tanks you should wash your hands and arms for 30sec with lathered soap, then rinse for 20 seconds with warm water while rubbing your hands together and over your forearms in as many orientations as you can. I have worked in genetics and microbiology labs and this is proven to remove 99.9%+ of microorganisms if done properly. Make sure you rinse very well. I don’t do this though, it is overboard, unless there are obvious signs of disease in a tank. Usually I will scrub with soap very vigorously for 7-8 seconds and rinse with warm water for 15 seconds.

If you don’t use soap you don’t have a surfactant. Bacteria and other microorganisms can be very “sticky” and soap allows for their removal as long as your scrub good and rinse very good. 10 minutes of hand scrubbing could give you a rash eventually , due to your natural microbial skin flora being severely damaged.

 

[Fish_Mike]

Ya, i meant it as an exaggeration. Came out too literal.

I was more worried of any soap getting into the tank, really, not so much the bacteria on my hands.

 

[rdd1952]

I just wash mine with soap and water just as if I was getting ready to eat dinner. As long as you rinse your hands well, there isn't any worry of introducing soap into the tank.

 

[Somethings Fishy Here]

I never wash mine unless Ive been dealing with some kind of chemicals or dirt... and I wouldn't want to risk using soap thats the main reason I don't wash them.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

i just use warm water and rinse my hands off, unless i was working on something. then i just wait until the next day to stick my hands in the tank

 

[Synirr]

I rinse my hands off if I've put hand lotion on recently (which I do a lot, as my hands are always dry,) but other than that I do absolutely nothing. I don't wash them before or after handling my tanks. It has been years and so far both the fish and I are ok

 

[rdd1952]

I never wash mine unless Ive been dealing with some kind of chemicals or dirt... and I wouldn't want to risk using soap thats the main reason I don't wash them.

With all the germs we come in contact with daily, you are much more likely to introduce something bad into your tank from unwashed hands than you are with hands washed with soap and rinsed thouroughly.

 

[Inchworm]

I don't do anything special before I put my hands in a tank, but because I do this often, I'm very careful to rinse soap off when I wash dishes or just wash my hands. I especially wash them after using any kind of cleaning product around the house

It also means I can't use hand lotion, so my hands get dry during the winter. Of course, when I spend a lot of time working in the tanks, they look like prunes.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

i dont think washing your hands with soap is neccesary unless you handled dirt or oil. fish have immune systems too you know? i usually just think of this, would i eat food with my hands like this(which is pretty much yes everytime unless i can see stuff on them)?

 

[Ethos]

I don't wash them before or after handling my tanks. It has been years and so far both the fish and I are ok

Are you serious? Thats interesting... Maybe its just cause I'm weird, but I feel like I need to wash my hands after I do that.

 

[Matty]

aux naturel baby!

My hands are usually fairly clean, my tank is large enough to mitigate whatever contaminants i might be carrying on them and my fish are very, very hardy!