War stories of reefing
- Thread starter badstorm48
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Gosh, where to start. 
Bites from a vicious female clown. Yes, she drew blood. Ocellaris pair. She even jumped out of the water to get at me.
Horrible rashes from aiptasia in my overflows. Stuck my arms in to clean. Never again. Lasted a couple weeks of itching and pain.
Regular numbness from any hammer or frogspawn to fingers if I touch them.
Urchin spine through the finger. OUCH! Bristle worms suck!
Cuts and scrapes regularly.
Zoatoxin in my eyes twice. Lost vision or cloudy vision for days and pain for weeks. Both times were rough.
Blew up a 250w mh over the tank. Thank goodness I was not hurt, but scary sound. Tried to burn down the place with a heater that got out of the water and was on! Nasty. I caught it early.
Gosh, so much more besides flooding the house many times.
Bites from a vicious female clown. Yes, she drew blood. Ocellaris pair. She even jumped out of the water to get at me.
Horrible rashes from aiptasia in my overflows. Stuck my arms in to clean. Never again. Lasted a couple weeks of itching and pain.
Regular numbness from any hammer or frogspawn to fingers if I touch them.
Urchin spine through the finger. OUCH! Bristle worms suck!
Cuts and scrapes regularly.
Zoatoxin in my eyes twice. Lost vision or cloudy vision for days and pain for weeks. Both times were rough.
Blew up a 250w mh over the tank. Thank goodness I was not hurt, but scary sound. Tried to burn down the place with a heater that got out of the water and was on! Nasty. I caught it early.
Gosh, so much more besides flooding the house many times.
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I have been pretty blessed when it comes to injuries from my tank. I have had the occasional prick of the bristleworm, urchin, rock, etc. I have also sliced my finger with blades fragging corals and also did some things that irritated my eyes.
Salt Creep
Active Member
Gosh, where to start.
Bites from a vicious female clown. Yes, she drew blood. Ocellaris pair. She even jumped out of the water to get at me.
Horrible rashes from aiptasia in my overflows. Stuck my arms in to clean. Never again. Lasted a couple weeks of itching and pain.
Regular numbness from any hammer or frogspawn to fingers if I touch them.
Urchin spine through the finger. OUCH! Bristle worms suck!
Cuts and scrapes regularly.
Zoatoxin in my eyes twice. Lost vision or cloudy vision for days and pain for weeks. Both times were rough.
Blew up a 250w mh over the tank. Thank goodness I was not hurt, but scary sound. Tried to burn down the place with a heater that got out of the water and was on! Nasty. I caught it early.
Gosh, so much more besides flooding the house many times.
And this was just in the past month...
LoCoFish
New Member
I was cleaning the back glass of an aquarium and accidentally brushed my hand up against the live rock. (Like I do all the time over the past 10 years or so) except this time my hand hit a little tub worms calcium tube and broke a little piece off in my hand. I didn't think anything of it till a couple hours later my entire hand went numb, a tiny needle point hole where the tube had gone in and got stuck started to throb horribly and all the veins on my right arm were red and sticking out. I rushed to emergency clinic where they recommend I go to the ER at a hospital. 5 days of hospital stay, numerous blood tests later, 15 bags of antibiotics fed through my arm and I was diagnosed with a flesh eating bacteria acquired from the tube worms shell. Had to have plastic surgery on my hand to remove all the dead tissue and festering plus. Took a month after to recover and my hand still aches every once in awhile. (Happened on sept 21, 2015) and I have pics! If anyone wants to see?
LoCoFish
New Member
At the er waiting room
10 hours after initial poke, already festered and flesh is dying
24 hours after
The worst part was when the dr stuck a huge needle into the wound to see if any of the pockets of my hand had been infected. Of course I'm watching him do it... (Luckily hadn't spread)
10 hours after initial poke, already festered and flesh is dying
24 hours after
The worst part was when the dr stuck a huge needle into the wound to see if any of the pockets of my hand had been infected. Of course I'm watching him do it... (Luckily hadn't spread)
Lowell Lemon
2500 Club Member
Set up a holding system in my basement and one day as I was watching TV I noticed a glimmer under the door. Several of the 20 gallon glass tank bottoms blew out and the water spilled onto the floor along with hundreds of dollars of fish and inverts. I graduated to acrylic tanks from then on. I just purchased the first glass tank in 30 years...hope I don't have a repeat experiance. Curse those low iron rimless tanks...I just had to have one.
Salt Creep
Active Member
NO! I DON'T WANT TO SEE THE PICS!!! too late 
OMG, that looks horrible! That red line up your arm... was that the infection travelling upward? Good thing you went to the ER right away, jeez.
OMG, that looks horrible! That red line up your arm... was that the infection travelling upward? Good thing you went to the ER right away, jeez.
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badstorm48
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Wow locofish that's bad. How did the tube manage to do all that though?
LoCoFish
New Member
The red line was the infection spreading into my blood 
almost made it across my chest before the antibiotics started to kick in.
The Drs were not sure if it was the tube worms shell, bacteria from the water or live rock, or maybe something from a piece of coral? They couldn't test for anything specific like that but they did pinpoint the bacteria and it was saltwater related.... I guess the tube worms sharp pointy shell broke my skin and the rest followed very quickly afterwards. Very lucky that I didn't loose my thumb or hand. They of course had to mention amputation and I nearly fainted.
almost made it across my chest before the antibiotics started to kick in. The Drs were not sure if it was the tube worms shell, bacteria from the water or live rock, or maybe something from a piece of coral? They couldn't test for anything specific like that but they did pinpoint the bacteria and it was saltwater related.... I guess the tube worms sharp pointy shell broke my skin and the rest followed very quickly afterwards. Very lucky that I didn't loose my thumb or hand. They of course had to mention amputation and I nearly fainted.
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the amazing and scary part about the kind of infection you had is its bacterial in nature and can come on literally any single marine substrate, fish, liquid, anything we may handle, the key is finding that break in the skin or mucous membrane.
palytoxin actual poisoning is rare but vibrio? common/ we've all wiped it across our foreheads before many times if we own a sw aquarium especially reefs. vibrio is simply common and not only a human pathogen, some corals get infected too
that line running up the arm was the telltale symptom that's just going off old vib threads I saw at RC where they did verify it through however they plated it out etc. and each pic had those red tracing lines.
palytoxin actual poisoning is rare but vibrio? common/ we've all wiped it across our foreheads before many times if we own a sw aquarium especially reefs. vibrio is simply common and not only a human pathogen, some corals get infected too
that line running up the arm was the telltale symptom that's just going off old vib threads I saw at RC where they did verify it through however they plated it out etc. and each pic had those red tracing lines.
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badstorm48
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I prob would of fainted as well if I heard amputation
cnseekatz
Well-Known Member
At the er waiting room
10 hours after initial poke, already festered and flesh is dying
24 hours after
The worst part was when the dr stuck a huge needle into the wound to see if any of the pockets of my hand had been infected. Of course I'm watching him do it... (Luckily hadn't spread)
You win
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a practicing hosp lab tech told me recently here in the chem forum that vibrio was the pathogen of the great killer cholera and that's amazing. stuff lands open wound arm, get the tracing lines. ingest it and it finds an open mucous membrane in the alimentary canal or oral mucosae and its quite possible to catch cholera with it, apparently.
I must rate vibrio as more dangerous to us vs palytoxin. Of course PT is acutely more lethal and wont require membrane breaks, but encountering it is true rare compared to daily vibrio 100% of you are farming right now heh sorry for the OCD's out there but it does no good to not consider it.
I must rate vibrio as more dangerous to us vs palytoxin. Of course PT is acutely more lethal and wont require membrane breaks, but encountering it is true rare compared to daily vibrio 100% of you are farming right now heh sorry for the OCD's out there but it does no good to not consider it.
