I need to elaborate...

[elephantnose3334]

I have posted the fish cuddling thing on Aug 30 and other dates. I now know the dangers of a bacterial or fungal infection in the fish if not done properly. But their owners or other people may have santised themselves properly before touching fish. I was curious because I want to see how fish would react when being touches by human hands. I did show a video of a diver kissing a fish before throwing them back to the water, prompting them to return to the diver's hands, but you didn't reply to me. Kissing fish is gross in my opinion. I'm sorry for posting this kind of content, I was just curious and wanting to know if fish like being hugged and touched by human hands. It's a weird thing to do, especially fish lovers like me, but you know the drill.

 

[GaryE]

My concern isn't sanitized hands. It's scraping. The first line immune response of a fish is its slime. If we accidentally remove the slime, in aquarium conditions, the fish is at risk. That finger wide streak can kill a fish.

If I have a jumper, I don't ever touch it with dry hands. Yes, picking it up quickly is its only hope, but that tiny bit of time to wet your skin or the net can save its life.

If you kiss a fish you have a moral problem. You should immediately marry, and mermaids aren't like in the movies. They're like Kardashians with scales.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Years ago I used to buy discuss from a home based fish seller near Philly. I had friend In Delaware I would visit regularly and i could stop to buy fish from this seller on my way home. He was not limited to discus, but that was mostly what I would get from him. On one visit he had a tank filled with cardinal Tetras in his basement fish room.

He was moving some of the tetras and he accidentally dropped one onto the concrete floor. When I do that, I have a plastic encased card I wet and use to slide under the fish to return it to where it needs to go. I tend not to want to handle fish with my hands unless I must. So what this guy did next suprised the heck out of me.

He got down on his hands and knees on the floor over the fallen tetra, he then leaned over and sucked the fish off of the floor into his mouth. From there he spit it into the tank. The fish seemed fine.

I have never seen this done again by anyone. I am sure if I tried it I would have sucked the fish right down my throat and into my stomach. I would never in my wildest dreams try this on any fish.

Then a few years back when I was doing rooms sales at the Catfish Convention I was exhausted by the time I got there with my car loaded with stuff. I spent hours setting up tanks, filling them and getting the waterer warmed so I could unbag fish into the tanks. I was really tired by this point and I made a big mistake. I accidentally mixed two of my B&W pleco species in one tank. UGH!

it would have taken me about 90 minutes to try and get the fish sorted out. Fortunately, down the hall were two of the best pleco people I knew, They boith had world wide reputations. So I headed down to the room to beg for help. The gal there came back to my room. She took one looks and grabbed a small shoebox side Rubbermaid and a net. The result was that all the fish went into the small box with water and we went back to her room. There the second person and she used their bare wet hands to sort the fish. It took them under 5 minutes to sort close to 40 fish into two boxes and they got them 100% right.

It took me at least another 10 years before I was willing to handle a fish with my hands and when I did I was wearing a latex exam glove. Since then I have moved a few fish using my wet hand. But I am less worried about being stabbed by a spine than I am about accidentally harming the fish.

The one thing I will do when I have fish in a bucket I need to get into tanks, I will use a specimen box to catch them in the bucket and then dump them into wherever they need to end up. With plecos and nets one needs to be very careful about their odontiles or fins to get stuck in the net, I always use fine mesh or brine shrimp nets to catch plecos to minimize spines getting caught. I have gotten good at freeing the occasional one that gets stuck. I manipulate the net to free the fish, I do not manipulate the fish itself.

edited for spelling and typos

 

[elephantnose3334]

My concern isn't sanitized hands. It's scraping. The first line immune response of a fish is its slime. If we accidentally remove the slime, in aquarium conditions, the fish is at risk. That finger wide streak can kill a fish.

If I have a jumper, I don't ever touch it with dry hands. Yes, picking it up quickly is its only hope, but that tiny bit of time to wet your skin or the net can save its life.

If you kiss a fish you have a moral problem. You should immediately marry, and mermaids aren't like in the movies. They're like Kardashians with scales.

That's why we need to be cautious when petting fish.

 

[GaryE]

Or avoid the needless risk altogether and not pet them at all. There's no risk to my dog when I pet her. If there were, I'd put her needs first.

 

[NoHugTheFish]

Hence my screen name. Ask my daughter how that worked out for Cinderella the goldfish.