# Hand washing (For the fishes' sake)



## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

This is a bit hard to share, not embarrassing, something worse than that. Hope someone else can learn something from it.

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Let me preface this long story by saying, last December, I moved this tank and fish and plants over 500km from Montreal to Brampton in -20C weather and didn't loose a fish or a plant. After I think almost 2 years with no deaths (save a couple old aged platys), this Friday past, I had the worst day in my aquarium "career". I lost 11 rummy, 2 micky mouse platy and 1 amano shrimp between 3PM and 9PM. 

I had no idea what was going on. I grabbed my tongs and collected the fatalities and did about a 30-40% water change and spent a long time watching the remaining fish to try and see what was wrong. I could not detect anything as the survivors were behaving fine and showed no sign of any problem. What happened to the dead fish?! I couldn't figure out what to do, they were fine then and now, two plus days later the 6 remaining fish all seem well, they are eating and swimming well.

After much thought, I believe I know what happened (or I have figured out how to blame myself), but I may never be sure. Friday, I was working around the house, in the garage, kitchen and did several chores, one of which must have left something on my hands that I managed to poison my fish with. Among other things, I cut the lawn (but didn't add gas to the mower), I started the dishwasher (with phosphate free cleaner since I care about the environment), moved some boxes around the garage that had contents like wood and newspaper/flyers. Towards the end, my brother had come by (and was waiting for me to finish aforementioned chores) so we could leave to go out. I remembered I had to feed the fish. In a rush to get out, I went downstairs, opened the food and fed the fish. I am supposing I had something on my fingers that got on the food when I crushed the flake and sprinkled it in. Some (most) fish ate some or enough of the tainted food they expired within hours. They were gone in less than 6 hours (when I looked at the tank next).

What really bugs me is I am kind of anal about this 99.9% of the time. I wash and rinse well before I go in my tanks. I wash well afterwards, all the way up to the shoulder if necessary. I use salt and vinegar to wash fish tank towels. I even do as much of my work as possible with plastic tongs/scissors to avoid going into the water at all since I don't want to introduce Mycobacterium into some nick I didn't notice. 

What happened to cause these deaths time? I can't say 100% for sure, but I think it's because I didn't wash my hands before I fed the fish.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

Sorry to hear that. I'm guilty of probably not taking enough precautions myself, but I usually rinse my hands with water beforehand and when feeding I typically feed from the containers, not directly with my hand.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

this is something that happened with some frogs i kept when i was a kid. it's a total bummer cuz it's so preventable. i 'm sorry. 

that said, i had pretty much forgotten about all that until you posted that. you may yet save some of my own fish from a similar fate.


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## kweenshaker (Mar 11, 2006)

"I started the dishwasher (with phosphate free cleaner since I care about the environment)"

Totally off topic, but what dishwasher stuff do you use? I've tried several natural kinds and none seem to work very well. It's the only thing left in the house that I haven't switched over and it really bugs me! 

That said, I'm sorry about your fish losses. It happens to the best of us and hopefully it'll be a lesson you'll only have to learn once!!


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

kweenshaker said:


> "I started the dishwasher (with phosphate free cleaner since I care about the environment)"
> 
> Totally off topic, but what dishwasher stuff do you use? I've tried several natural kinds and none seem to work very well. It's the only thing left in the house that I haven't switched over and it really bugs me!
> 
> That said, I'm sorry about your fish losses. It happens to the best of us and hopefully it'll be a lesson you'll only have to learn once!!


to be absolute about the whole thing, the best thing for the environment is to ditch the dishwasher entirely (it's a hog for energy resources and water, especially if you've got a sink which'll use mere litres of water.)

that being said, i have one sink (not a double) so doing dishes without the dishwasher is nearly impossible and at the least ludicrously time consuming. There's a few places in kensington market that will sell some really awesomely powerful and enviro-safe cleaning products, inc. dishwasher detergent. most of the stuff we pick up is highly concentrated, so you can even add water to it and stretch it out. i forget what products we use but we always hit up kensington market.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

I am so sorry that happened...

I did the exact same as i work with some nasty chemicals that even penitrate my gloves somtimes... I didnt wash my hands well enough and I had a major whipe out... It was heart breaking..


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

Thanks all for the "condolences".



Chris S said:


> <SNIP>I typically feed from the containers, not directly with my hand.


This would be a bit tricky and a recipe for overfeeding since the food container opening is about 4 inches across. 



twoheadedfish said:


> t<SNIP>
> i had pretty much forgotten about all that until you posted that. you may yet save some of my own fish from a similar fate.


That's the intention - remind people that we need to be as concerned about putting nasties into the tank as we are about getting them out.



kweenshaker said:


> <SNIP>
> Totally off topic, but what dishwasher stuff do you use?


PM Sent...



twoheadedfish said:


> to be absolute about the whole thing, the best thing for the environment is to ditch the dishwasher entirely (it's a hog for energy resources and water, especially if you've got a sink which'll use mere litres of water.)
> <SNIP>


I suppose you're right, but the "western" way of living is a resource intensive way of living - we're all "wasting" electricity keeping fish as a hobby and running computers to read this forum. Unless we go back to mud huts and tepees, we're all taking a bite out of the earth to some extent, some of us nibble and some gobble down mouthfuls...I'm trying to be a nibbler.



Ciddian said:


> I am so sorry that happened...
> 
> I did the exact same as i work with some nasty chemicals that even penitrate my gloves somtimes... I didnt wash my hands well enough and I had a major whipe out... It was heart breaking..


Penetrates through your gloves!?! What kind of gloves? What are you working with? Eeek!

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Like I said, just a cautionary tale to remind people of the importance of hygiene before and after tank maintenance.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

Mr Fishies said:


> we're all "wasting" electricity keeping fish as a hobby and running computers to read this forum.


lol, i guess i forgot about that.


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## kweenshaker (Mar 11, 2006)

twoheadedfish said:


> to be absolute about the whole thing, the best thing for the environment is to ditch the dishwasher entirely (it's a hog for energy resources and water, especially if you've got a sink which'll use mere litres of water.)


Actually, using the quick cycle, our dishwasher uses less water than washing dishes by hand (and we let them air dry, rather than use a heat cycle)


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Mr Fishies said:


> ... I use salt and vinegar to wash fish tank towels. ...


Did you manage to get any vinegar into the water? Vinegar is a powerful bacterial killing agent. It works just as good as chlorine. That might cause a cycle in your tank. I've had similar things like this before. But it was with anti-bacterial soap. I now have two pairs of fisherman/pond plastic glove, so when ever I need to put my hands in to the water, I put on the gloves.



kweenshaker said:


> Actually, using the quick cycle, our dishwasher uses less water than washing dishes by hand (and we let them air dry, rather than use a heat cycle)


This off topic, but have this theory ever been proven? I mean, running the fan to dry your dishes takes a very very long time. I something wonder if it might not use even more energy to run the fan than to heat up the dishwasher...

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## Westender (Mar 24, 2006)

I'm thinking that Kween just does the same as we do - no drying cycle at all. Once the dishwasher finishes, just open the door and let 'em dry.

Also, I don't know how efficient others are, but although I actually enjoy the act of washing dishes, I can't wash the same number of dishes in a single (or even two!) sinks full of water that our dishwasher takes for a single full load.


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## Riceburner (Mar 14, 2008)

for my sake as well I wash my hands before and after feeding.

I open the dishwasher and let it air dry overnight


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

I do that too 

Yea we work with two major ones, ET-5 Retarder which is like a very smelly varsol and another is Liquid tin for tin plating copper. We just have those nitrile gloves, we use majoy gloves for the tin and sometimes the gloves pop holes ever since we started using it. I really think the stuff breaks down the rubber to a degree and makes it prone to rips and tears. 

Even the smell of the stuff doesnt come off your hands for a while. I try to not work with it often. We also deal with ammonia to do copper etching. Stinky stinky u_u


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

Zebrapl3co said:


> Did you manage to get any vinegar into the water? Vinegar is a powerful bacterial killing agent. It works just as good as chlorine. That might cause a cycle in your tank.
> <SNIP>


I don't use vinegar around the tank, I soak the towels in salt water and use vinegar as a rinse agent then dry them as usual. I doubt anything is left behind that could get into the tank. I started doing this when it dawned on me that throwing them in with the regular laundry was leaving fragrances and fabric softener on the towels. I was washing my glasses and they kept looking filmy - I discovered that my better half had inadvertently added too much softener and it actually "gummed up" the load of towels.

Fabric softener is a scary product when you analyze some of the chemicals in there. For over 50 years now, we've been trained to think that pretty smells = clean, when true clean = no smell. So many products that do little but add fragrance are so bad for us...

I'm getting OT now.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I have often thought about the possibility of contaminating the fish tanks with residues on my hands that I'm not aware of. I've heard of plenty of people forgetting they had perfume on, or cream on their arms and such, but have you ever smelled your hands after washing with most soaps? Usually smells nice, which means bad news for the fish. Usually now, I rinse throughly with only water up to my elbows if I'm working in the tank to get anything off my arms.

Very sorry to hear of your losses, and I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone (myself included) to watch out what goes into and comes out of our tanks. Keep washing those hands!



Zebrapl3co said:


> This off topic, but have this theory ever been proven? I mean, running the fan to dry your dishes takes a very very long time. I something wonder if it might not use even more energy to run the fan than to heat up the dishwasher...


Also off topic, but I think dishwashers use less water than handwashing, but more energy to heat up the water it uses to wash the dishes. In our house, we just open the dishwasher after it's cycle to air dry while it's still hot.


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