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Do you wash your hands before feeding your betta?

  • Always

    Votes: 16 27.1%
  • Sometimes

    Votes: 12 20.3%
  • Usually not

    Votes: 31 52.5%

Do you wash your hands before feeding your betta?

6K views 74 replies 31 participants last post by  Warlock 
#1 ·
I was just curious :)
 
#2 ·
I am worried about soap contaminating their food and making them sick, so I never wash with soap before feeding my Bettas. In fact, if I've just washed my hands, I will delay their feeding for a while. I will sometimes rinse with just water before feeding them.
 
#4 ·
I rinse them in water, but I never ever use soap. If I forget and shower before I feed them I'll use measuring spoons or count it as their skip day.
 
#7 ·
I almost never wash my hands before fiddling with my tanks. Only exceptions are if I have been handling cleaning chemicals with bare hands or have been touching my hospital tank.

Since I don't wear nail polish, perfume or body/hand lotions I don't really see the need to be excessively washing my hands. I am always putting my hands into my tanks so to wash them every single time would just be time consuming.
 
#8 ·
I always wash my hands-before and after I do anything with my tanks using soap and water.

I don't stress over any soap residue...I have been doing it this way for a very long time and have never had any issue or caught anything from my tanks in the 40+ years in this hobby.

IMO/E-washing hands before and after working with your tanks is a good habit to form....
 
#10 ·
I don't do full soap and water, but I do use hot water.

Afterwards, I normally don't only because as I fill up the tank, I always have my hand under the water already.
And if my hands smell, well I just use hand sanitizer xD
 
#11 ·
Well the way I feed, I pretty much just touch the pellets. I don't touch the water or anything. So I don't really see a need to wash my hands before just feeding. I do, however, wash and rinse my hands very thoroughly before doing a water change, because I stick my hands in the water and touch things in the tank...
 
#12 ·
....Why did I think this was about before cleaning the tanks? xD

Disregard my last post

I rarely clean my hands before feeding them
 
#13 ·
Lol. I would have probably made the same mistake if it wasn't my thread ;)
 
#14 · (Edited)
#17 ·
Under normal circumstances, I don't wash my hands before feeding or cleaning. lol I guess I'm lazy and don't want to go down the hall to my floor's nasty bathroom. However, if I've just come from a chemistry or biology lab (where I wash my hands before leaving anyway), I will scrub my hands like I'm about ready to go into surgery - the last thing I need is sulferic acid or something of the like in my tanks.
 
#18 ·
I personally don't think it hurts or benefits the fish either way. Washing your hands usually doesn't kill every single germ on your hands, so if your fish was going to get sick from you touching it's food, I think it would get sick whether you washed up before or not. Just as long as you didn't touch any chemicals or lotions within a few hours prior...
 
#19 ·
I always wash my hands with soap before and after feeding, I just rinse for at least 30 seconds afterwards and get in good under the nails.

As far as cleaning, I do the same thing except if I have a wound on a hand or arm then I have gloves labeled for the fish tanks and I wash the gloves.
 
#21 ·
Is it necessary? Do those of you that do wash your hands before feeding think that it is necessary? Or do you do it more to ease your own mind?
 
#22 ·
My betta are on a live food diet XD. I have to use a spoon because I have a fear of touching anything remotely leach like, that includes blood worm. I generally rinse my hands under water if I have been doing art before anyway as I always get paint on my hands.

The only time i have stuff on my hands is because my nails are painted and i don't think that will kill the fish.
 
#23 ·
Before feeding I don't. My hands never actually touch the water when I'm feeding them. However, when I rearrange the tank or do water changes I always wash my hands and rinse them very well.
I kinda figured that the residue couldn't hurt them much since my hands will only be in the tank for a few seconds. Plus their are many things my hands could have come in contact with that I am unaware of.

If you rinse in hot water it dries out your hands so I know I at least don't have to worry about any oils on my hands, lol.
 
#24 ·
Never before, always after. If I stick my arms into my tank(The larger 5 gallon I just had to prune some leaves), I rinsed that arm off with some vinegar and then with water. After I was done, antibacterial soap and water, absolutely. If I'm just feeding, I use my fingertips and don't get dirty. Just wipe them off. The Omega one pellets aren't smelly like the hikari pellets I used to give. If I'm feeding blood worms, I wash.
 
#25 ·
I use the tiny spoon that comes with bottles of Atison's Pro to feed my betta his staple pellets (which are now NLS Betta Formula), so I don't really think about washing my hands before feeding times. If I'm handling FD bloodworms, which are really difficult to pick up with a spoon, I make sure to wash my hands before and after feeding.

However, if I'm going to be fiddling around with something inside the tank, or if it's water change day, I always wash my hands before and after doing anything. Basically - if I'm planning to touch anything that will come into direct contact with my fish, I wash my hands neurotically, for my fish's sake.
 
#26 ·
The main reason I wash my hands is due to the natural oils and lotions I use. This helps to keep the surface scum limited-especially since I don't use a lot of filtration on my tanks to help keep it broke up. And when I feed-it always seems like I gotta stick my hands in the tank for one reason or another....lol.....
 
#29 ·
Do you have a concern about contaminating the food/getting the fish sick from not washing your hands?
 
#27 ·
I wash my hand using Dawn Liquid Soap. I wash them because I touch a lot of things through out the day. Some of is money and imo money is just a dirty thing to touch.
 
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