Gloves And Skin Protection

[KoiRich]

This may be a very daft question but reading about some nasty stings and skin reactions and hearing that gloves should be warn got me thinking .....

I'm about to set up a 24g nano (my first tank), whilst building up live rock etc am I safe to assume you DON'T need gloves at this stage?

When you do start stocking with fish that bite and inverts etc that sting what sort of gloves should be used. Are Surgical ones OK?

Are Kitchen style washing up gloves OK.

What about the coatings that some of these have, should they be sterilized etc.

Last question on this is .... don't you need gloves that come up to your elbows for a deep tank?

 

[SkiFletch]

Gloves are an interesting topic. Some wear them, others dont. A few things that are for certain about gloves:

ONLY purchase gloves that are powderless and/or have NO coatings on them. Just straight plastic/latex/whatever
Shoulder length rubber gloves are the best for protection
Some latex gloves are thin enough to be of no protection to certain spines/teeth

Knowing all that, I only use wrist-length powderless surgical latex gloves. I'm more concerned with bristle worms and coral stings than I am with fish bites etc because of the stocking of my tank. Some people think I'm playing with fire, others think I'm being overly cautious, oppinions range wildly.

One thing of note, if you ever do break your skin underwater on rock, coral, fish, invert, etc wash it out THOROUGHLY with soap, water, and disinfectant. The last thing you want is a mybacterium marinum infection

 

[KoiRich]

Thanks for that reply, I think I'll play safe, but what about fresh cured Live Rock?

 

[SkiFletch]

IMO, if its coming out of the tanks at your LFS, all the somewhat dangerous stuff usually retreats into the crevices until you get it back under water. You dont need to go shoulder length for purchasing and stacking LR, just get some non-powdered wrist length gloves just in case.

 

[Spinal]

No help really, but at the LFS they wear steel-chain gloves (the ones you buy to stop you from cutting yourself in the kitchen) when they mess around in the Puffer tank. I thought that was pretty funny