OMG...u know how ppl say u cant touch fish...

[kevin007]

well...yesterday while i was hand feeding em..one nipped me...then yesterday i was doin sum rearangin around da tank and one platty came REALLY close to my hand..i touched it and i thinked it liked it dat is so cute maby it got used to my hand feeding will dat do any harm to the fish?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I just hand-fed mine some bloodworm!! I think as long as your hands are clean adn you are gentle there shouldn't be any adverse effects.

 

[tdins_2]

i had a angel like that he was pretty big but he used to try to swim through the glass toward me and when i came near the tank he would swim to the top with the others and i would open the canopy and my tetras would spit at me and i could hold flakes and bloodworms an inch out of the water and the jump for them and i could pet my angel but i sold him

 

[wuvmybetta]

you guys

You'd love a day with my midas, everything is a hands on activity with him. Yesterday I went to net a scoop of gravel to set up a betta tank and he grabbed the net and I literally had a tug of war with him. Then I had to reach in and grab his tail to distract him so he'd let go. Grabbing the tail always works on him, especially during water changes

I always pet my eel he's much slimier than he appears ,but nothing compares to peeling/scraping/scooping a wet betta off the counter when they jump during a water change

 

[PereguineFalcon]

Depends what type of fish. I breed Managuense(Jaguar) cichlids and when they are breeding you don't wanna stick your hand in the tank....they draw blood...lol. That goes for most cichlids when they are breeding though....hand=threat=attack! I hand feed my tetras,gourami, and mollies tubiflex worm cubes...don't see anything wrong wit it.

 

[aquarius]

sometimes i pet my fish , is that weird

 

[Starry]

You are not suppose to touch the fish because you can take off their protective slime coat which will cause them to be more at risk to get diseases.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

You are not suppose to touch the fish because you can take off their protective slime coat which will cause them to be more at risk to get diseases.

I don't agree, it's just like them coming into contact with anything else. You sould just make sure your hands are clean and that you are really gentle. If you are damagint the slime coat you will know. I had to catch a clown loach and it got caught in the net so I had to get a tight hold of it to get it free. My hand was covered in slime, I never feel anything after touching my fish in normal circumstances.

 

[BigSteve]

I doubt you touched it enough to have any adverse effect on slime coat or anything. But get a load of this... once I went to a local fish/pet store to buy a few
neon tetras. They had a tank with I'd say about 50 of them, but it was a huge tank
and quite heavily planted. I told the fish area girl I wanted 4-5 neons. She was having
a hell of a time trying to catch even one of them. She was ripping out plants and
working that net like crazy. Finally she caught one, and instead of dumping it from the
net into the bag, she took it out of the net BY HAND and dropped it in the bag! What
a dork. I said "Forget it. I'm out of here."

 

[kevin007]

I doubt you touched it enough to have any adverse effect on slime coat or anything. But get a load of this... once I went to a local fish/pet store to buy a few
neon tetras. They had a tank with I'd say about 50 of them, but it was a huge tank
and quite heavily planted. I told the fish area girl I wanted 4-5 neons. She was having
a hell of a time trying to catch even one of them. She was ripping out plants and
working that net like crazy. Finally she caught one, and instead of dumping it from the
net into the bag, she took it out of the net BY HAND and dropped it in the bag! What
a dork. I said "Forget it. I'm out of here."

alot of pet stores do dat...dat is ok too...as long as the employee's hands are wet

 

[bittersweet]

All of my bettas hand feed, and sometimes they are more interested in my fingers than the food and will nip at my hands. I think its funny. I always wash my hands good first and make sure they are clean, and I add stresscoat to the water during every water change to help there protective slime coat. I hate when they jump outta the water and I have to pick them up off the counter or floor, im always afraid that they are so delicate that I will hurt them..but I havent so far.

 

[spanair]

I feed my fishes by hand some times, they are pretty used to *the hand* as I work on the aquariums weekly changing this or that, changing water, and so on. So after a while they get used to it. The only thing I dont trust in feeding by hand is mr crab

 

[guppybaby]

well this very helpful to me, I have wanted to try to hand feed my fish but i was afraid of hurting them or doing something wrong. They always run when i get in the tank to do weekly water changes so i was afraid to bother them. Maybe i guess when it comes to food it is a totally different story.

 

[snowyangel]

I often pet my guppies, but my fingers are in the water , so it does no harm. I always play this game when i put in two fingers slightly seperated then my guppies love swimming through them. The space could even be as skinny as their bodies and they still wanna swim through. I love my guppies to death. I'm even able to pet my 2month old babies too . But basically the reason why i can pet them is half the time they think i have food and also they see alot of my hands with water changes etc like spanair said.

 

[Doggfather]

yeah, i feed my angelfish by hand sometimes, and whenever i put my fingure in the water, my guppies come and graze against it too