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Ever get bitten while working on your tank?

L

lithivm

did anyone get bitten by their "pets" while doing routine maintenance on the tank?

I have this domino damsel that if I get close to it darts and bites!! I always scream like a little girl and swing my arm out of the tank.... it doesn't much but I never expect it.

At least is not like my last pet Chito the snapping turtle.... that guy really got me one....
 
K

kathainbowen

lithivm said:
did anyone get bitten by their "pets" while doing routine maintenance on the tank?

I have this domino damsel that if I get close to it darts and bites!! I always scream like a little girl and swing my arm out of the tank.... it doesn't much but I never expect it.
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My skunk cleaner always seems to find that one cut or nick on my hand or arm while I'm water changing, when I'm not paying attention, and suddenly decide to rip it open. Ouchies! Other than that, all my personal saltwater pets have been generally well behaved. At work, however, there never seemed to be a shortage of fish that seemed to want my fingers.
 
K

kathainbowen

lithivm said:
What kind of work?
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I worked at an Atlanta lfs through college. Awesome job, and most certainly my favorite job (if not that- GA Ren Fest). My boss liked exotic and different fish to have along with our usual "bread and butter" stuff, so we often ended up with strange things lurking about in our tanks.
 
B

Brian

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
At my last job, they had a clown trigger that was about 8" long.

It got a hold of my finger...It wasn't all that pleasant. Their teeth are pretty jagged.

My old clownfish would constantly bite me whenever I put my hand in the tank, it loved to bite me right between my fingers...didn't hurt that much, but it was annoying as hell!
 
K

kathainbowen

ReefDrumz said:
At my last job, they had a clown trigger that was about 8" long.
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... I feel your pain. We had a 6 or 7" blueline trigger that would play possum with us. When you stuck your hands into the tank to do a scrub down (ah, the joys of having to do a scrub down on an entire wall and a 300-500G water change, good times, good times), he'd dart behind the rock pile and hide, like he was utterly terrified of you. Once you let your guard down and stopped watching him, he'd come out and try to grab you.

.... what a jerk of a fish. :p
 
GregW

GregW

I was never bitten by it but I once had a queen trigger that would shoot a mouth full of water at me every time I looked down into the tank.
 
K

kathainbowen

mantis32 said:
Lesson for me...no triggers.
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Lol, not all of them are that bad. Look at the three mentioned in these tales. A clown, a queen, and a blueline, argued by some people to be among the most aggressive triggers. I'll be honest, I consider them to be up there with the picasso (while others would argue the picasso to be peaceful, I've never known a nice or peaceful picasso). Other triggers, however, can be much less..... er... forceful when it comes to humans in their tank. The bursa, the bluejaw, the sargassum, the niger, the pink tail, the inkspot, among others come to mind.

Honestly, the absolute WORST animal I'd ever encountered in an aquarium, was a big tesselated eel. That was one angry bugger. He'd try to get you any way he could. I hate to say it though, but we all thought it was a pretty awesome animal, despite that.
 
C

Carlo

This is my first picasso and he's on the small size compared to my clown and black Hawaiian trigger but I'm able to pick him up with my hands to move him to different QT tanks. He's roughly the size of a typically Hawaiian Flame Angel at present.

It's funny, in my aggressive tank my drawf lion and two triggers usually leave me alone (black sometimes comes after me) but the Paddle Fin Wrasse is always giving me a scare/nipping at me.

BillyR98, since many of these were your fish did you experience the same thing?

Carlo
 
A

AnDom1

My Percula Clown and cleaner wrasse constantly nibble (painlessly) at my hands while a number of other smaller fish like my Flame Hawk swim around my them. My problem comes in handling Live Rock and Corals which occasionally pinch my hands which then sometimes become irritated by the invading bacteria in the water. It can take several days for the irritation to go away completely.
 
S

saltwater4life

kathainbowen same thing happens to me... and from skateboarding my hands always have cuts on them and i jump when it gets me haha i'm always scared my Emerald crab will get me and i'm always scared to move rock. (luckily it's never gotten me)
 
A

AnDom1

The key to not having to handle Live Rock is to use large pieces and to epoxy the corals to them if possible. This way they won't get knocked down either by passing fish or by you when doing maintenence. Too bad I didn't take my own advice (LOL)
 
M

mantis32

Funny to hear stories of fish with personalities. Any horror stories of a Snowflake eel? I would love to put one of those in my tank.
 
P

paladin1369

One of my Percula Clowns will attack as soon as i put my hand in the tank or will splash you with water if you stand at her corner of the tank. :eek:
 
H

Hitman

I had a tank with a Clown, Humma Humma and Niger Trigger along with a Lunnare Wrasse, Porcupine Puffer and a Snowflake Moray. I could NOT put my hand in the tank to do anything! They recognized anything that went into the tank as food.
 
N

ndas2976

I just finished doing a water change and I was adjusting one of the powerheads. My daughter called me to look at drawing she did, I took my eyes off of the tank for 2 seconds next thing I know I started screaming like a little baby. I looked back in the tank to see my Guineafowl puffer chomping down on the tip of my index finger. I pulled my hand out of the tank, and he continued to hang on to my finger and somewhere in mid air he let go and landed in a bucket of left over water from the water change. 1 year later he is still in my tank and has never tried to bite me again. He now eats krill right from my fingers.

My Sargassum trigger also bit the ball of my thumb during a feeding. That bite didn't hurt as bad as the puffer
 
N

Nano10

My Clown has takin runs at my hand doesn't hirt but while fishing for bluefish alone IBSP on memorial day i had the unlucky experience of a bluefish bite that caused me to spend the afternoon and the SOCH emergency room.
 
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