Ouch it stung me!

yalan

New member
I had a tankalanch yesterday, while trying to pick up this huge hammer colony, it stung me! In the picture you will see my arm with red little dots roughly in circle shape, and the hammer that is responsible for it. :furious:
 

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Yep, they will do that. :lol: I get huge, bright red welts on my arms when my magnifica anemones sting me. Feels like a cut with lemon juice in it.
 
I have touched them numbers of times before (just the hand part) without reactions, just felt a bit sticky, but I guess my forearm skin are just more sensitive. Also, I thought that maybe since it was on top of another coral (only for a few sec, good thing no real damage was done), it was gearing up for a chemical warfare:eek2:

This also reminded me that my hippo tang had a small part of galeaxia's tenticles hanging from his back few weeks ago, but he/she didn't seem to mind. It fell off in a couple of days, and a discolored dot was in place, but in a few day the normal color returned. No harm done. :lol:
 
I have only ever touched the skeleton of LPS corals. Well I did touch the "cap" of a candy cane coral, but no stinging. However, I have had those little red bumps after working in my tank, but I never contacted anything...
 
Should really use arm length gloves. There are some unpleasant things that can hurt you. Some of them not visible to the human eye!
 
Hammer corals pack a mild sting comparing to the carpet anemone. I wear gloves to pick my old purple carpet up, and it wrap around my forearm pretty quick ( it was 11" across) before I can get every single bit of it off me, I can feel all the sharp stings. At the end, I had a very sensative forearm to deal with, and every time I went to wash my arm, it kindly reminds me with the pain. it lasted for about a week....
 
I've discovered that I only feel the stings from my tanks inhabitants where I have hair follicles. I looked it up on the web and there is a correlation between nematocysts and where you can actually feel their sting. Interesting!
 
Check out what one of my corals did to me. Never felt a sting, but this happened shortly after:
 

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:sad2: that looks nesty... do you know which coral did it? I felt a very light sting when my forearm accidentally touch the hammer, not much at the time. But now 2 days later, the red bumps are getting itchy:worried2:
 
:sad2: that looks nesty... do you know which coral did it? I felt a very light sting when my forearm accidentally touch the hammer, not much at the time. But now 2 days later, the red bumps are getting itchy:worried2:

Not too sure if it was a coral that stung me or if I brushed up against a rock and got some nasty bacterial infection. It never stung or hurt just kinda looked like 3rd degree burn blisters and the went away within a month.
Either way freaked me out a little.
 
I was talking to the owner of a LFS a few years ago and he said he had a small cut on his hand when fragging hammers. It brushed up against the cut and stung him pretty bad. He went to the hospital to get it looked at. Ended up feeling sick after it too. He said he's fragged and handled them hundreds of times, but that one exposure cause a bad reaction. Now im scared to touch mine.
 
Worst for me was a RBTA. Felt like a burn. Forearm swelled and welted pretty quickly. I have been hit the fingers by frogspawn/hammer and usually end up with a numb feeling for a cpl days. Sometimes achy joints.
 
I remember reading an article that stated that the sting is cumulative. The more you are stung by a particular coral the more you will be sensitive to it later. I never gave it much thought but I have noticed over the years that I have started to get reactions from corals that never bothered me before. Then again it could be that I am just getting older.
 
I have pretty sensitive skin but I've never been affected by anything, not even my frogspawn. I did have a small cut on my hand a few weeks ago that got kind of stingy after I had my hands in the tank, but that's it. I never did touch my Condylactis Anemone, I was too chicken. I think I'm going to look into those Nitrile gloves f3honda4me posted. I've been meaning to get some just to be safe (and because my clowns bite me constantly). I'm actually more scared of cutting myself on bacteria infested LR than getting stung by a coral, unless its a palytoxin, then I'm terrified.
 
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