we should really think before putting our hands in our tank

As hobbiest we stick our hands in our tanks without much thought about all the bacteria etc that might be in our tank. There are toxins, palytoxins, bacteria such as TB and mycobactrium marinum, along with bristleworms, venomous fish, fireworms and all sort of creepy crawly things we can see or not

However most of us dont ever think twice about sticking our hands in our tanks. I even have those aquarium super thick gloves that they sell........I never wear them because they are so clumsy to use

I am not sure, but i think i have an infection on my finger from being in the tanks. I dont know exactly when i got exposed, but there were 2 possible times. About 2 weeks ago, my zoanthid fell onto some mushrooms and was producing a ton of slimey stringy material. Without thinking i reached in and moved the zoa and caught in my bare hands all the slime and tissue slough. About 15 minutes later my right hand swelled up and became very red. Benadryl took care of it rather quickly

Then yesterday I was working in my tank fragging a bunch of different types of corals. Later in the night, I brushed the side of my right middle finger and had a lot of pain. Assuming I had been stung by bristleworms, i used duct tape and didnt think anything else about it.

About 3 am this morning I woke up to extreme itching on the same finger and pain in the upper part of the joint. Went back to sleep and when I woke up this morning, I noticed an open area with 3 little lumps in it in the middle of my finger, and 4 nodules on the top part of my finger and along side the finger. My finger was also VERY swollen and very red. Also I was having pain in the top part of my joint like I jammed it and couldnt get it back in place.

I am self diagnosing myself with mycobacterium marinum and am hoping to be able to get ahold of my physician in am to get some antibiotics. I do think that the first event was when I was exposed, as it normally takes 2-4 weeks to get symptoms. The swelling and the redness has decreased throughout the day however the bumps remained. Now it seems like the itching and swelling has moved down my finger closer to the hand.

So here is the pics of my finger earlier this morning





long story short, we should be more thoughtful of where we place our hands and consider wearing aquarium gloves always when working in our aquarium.

 

Since you know the routine. Treatment includes a culture and sometimes intensive IV antibiotic therapy. The routine MD has no clue what to look for.

 

that is what i am afraid of......being here in the midwest chances of finding someone who knows of this is going to be hard. I am hoping it continues to get better and maybe i am over-reacting!

I am going to take pictures of it to keep track of it as that is the kind of geek i am!

 

No need to be overconcerned at this point but you do need to make sure you mention to the MD that you are a reefkeeper and point him in the right direction otherwise he will never even think of looking for a local TB infection like that. Also I am pretty sure a lot of that is caused by the toxins from the zoas not a TB starting to flair its ugly head.

Agreed we should think twice I often find myself sticking my hands in the tank all the time and then just rinsing the salt off without even thinking about bacteria until my wife scolds me for having nasty fishwater hands lol.

On the flip side what are WE introducing into the tank in the way of bacteria, chemicals, etc from soaps, lotions, and everything else we make/touch throughout the day. Awhile ago I worked at a petstore and we had a terrible issue with white bacterial blooms in a 55gallon tank, took us months to figure out the issue was most likely caused by our use of bacterial hand sanitizer and putting our hands into the tank before it was dried. We did countless waterchanges and test on the tank and everything checked out fine but the white bloom always came back within 24 hours, after we stopped using purell so much it completely went away

 

I really hope you are wrong. That is some nasty bacteria and like Cheryl said the average doc has no clue. I'll be praying for the best.

I just read recently that corals carry the a strain of herpes virus too. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

Hmmmm, that is interesting........it is blistered! Dont know what I would rather have

 

Interesting didnt know I can get herpes from my coral, would really have some explaining to do to the significant other lol

 

Very interesting and slightly disturbing too. I hope your boo boo gets better

 

Coral Herpes! JJ

I've seen stories of amputations do to the mm infection. I always mean to get a pair of good gloves but have yet to do so.

Haha that is exactly what I thought when I read it.

Corals get Herpesvirus too | Reefs.com

 

huh have had my hand do that on a few occasions but due to snake bites I just went to tractor supply and got horse Penicillin LOL and dosed it to my body weight and bam good to go