Busted!

[JPloman]

Today I busted my cleaner shrimp like humping the head of my lawn mower blenny... Is this normal??? I have never him get close to another shrimp...

Oh then I went in there to harvest algae and he started humping my hands!!! WTH!

[electrikat]

He's a cleaner. He was cleaning. They will also clean your hands if they are used to you.

[Jonathan G.]

(in my best beavis voice) ugghhh uggh he said hump... lol i cant wait til i get some cleaners.

[JPloman]

Wow Kat,

I have never seen one do that before! It was kinda cool when he was on my hand. I havest algae all the time, so he must be used to me.

[BillyZ]

it is a very strange feeling to have them on your hand... I practically can't even feel them! I told my wife when she was watching it climb on me the one time, that all I could really feel, was like someone was dragging piece of thread across my hand... very interesting and unique feeling.

[klam]

I usually wear dishwashing gloves and the cleaner shrimp will not try to clean my arms with them on. I guess it knows.

[JPloman]

I am afraid to use any kind of gloves when cleaning my tank. It would be just my luck that they would have some sort of poison on them and my whole tank would die again...

Our tank got poisoned by the guy that sprays for bugs. We lost everything. I am now just freaked out about putting any chemicals near my tank.

When I clean, I wash my hands all the way to the elbow, then rinse again with RO water. Then I used papertowels to dry them off.

Do you think its better to use gloves or do it the way I do?

[MT79]

Do you think its better to use gloves or do it the way I do?

I think it's better to buy a pair of gloves that go to the elbow, many LFS/online vendors carry them.

[klam]

Since my tank is shallow I use dishwashing gloves and buy the ones that doesn't have any kind of mold or bacteria fighting chemicals on them.
Gloves are good because it helps protects your tank from anything on your arms like lotion or if you didn't rinse your hands good enough when washing with soap, etc. Plus I've seen some pics of peoples hands that got some kind of infection from their tanks. So it's for my protection also.

[JPloman]

If I ever get an infection from salt-water, just kill me! Life is not worth living is you cant be in the ocean!!!

[X the Outsider]

My friend her hand breaks out when she puts her hands in the salt tank. I think it's more of salt irritating her skin though.

Back to the subject; I've seen cleaners clean peoples hands before. My peppermint just started cleaning my hands. It's kind of fun to watch him crawl up my arms when I'm algae wiping.