Microscopic Jellyfish???

andysgirl8800

Blenny Badlands
So, this may be a strange question, but here goes. I was scrubbing out the hair algae off my rocks (and everything else) yesterday. I was wearing gloves, but not the full length ones, just standard yellow dish gloves. Which means, of course, that they fill with water while I am working in the tank. :grumble: Then, I started to notice distinct stinging along my skin inside the gloves. The more crap I stirred up as I brushed off the algae, the more I noticed the stinging sensation, almost like how a 9v battery feels when you touch it to your tongue, but in much smaller, pinpoint areas along my arms and fingers.

At first I thought I might have stray electrical current in the tank, so I checked with a voltometer....nada, so I got back to work. The stinging got more frequent and more strong when I went to work on the very worst HA infested area of my tank. I just tried to ignore it. I took the gloves off to work around my mushrooms so I could feel the brush better and not accidently damage my corals. Once I took them off, I wasn't feeling the stinging anymore. :shock: I didn't notice any marks on my skin, but it was also wet and a bit covered in disembodied bits of HA (die die DIE!!!)

Really wierd. One thought I had was maybe there are tiny little stinging animals, like jellyfish, or something, that are hiding in the HA. When I stir things up, they end up in the water column. Since my hand is in the immediate vicinity, and the water has free access to my inner glove, maybe these little stinging animals get trapped between the glove and my skin and are stinging in self defense. Without the gloves, they don't get trapped and are free to move to another hiding place. :12: Has this happened to anyone else?? Does anyone have any other theories?
 
well, i'm gonna ask a couple silly questions, first, are you sure that there wasnt something in the glove before you put it on, and when the glove filled with water, that caused it to freak out and start defending itself?

and secondly did you find anything in the glove when you took it off?
 
I have felt little charges in the water before and I had nothing show up on the meter either. Maybe you had some little cuts on your hand?
 
Never been allergic to them before. Nothing in the gloves already. I turn them inside out after each use so they can dry completely. Do bristle worms sting? Do they hide in hair algae? I didn't see anything in the gloves except shriveled brown streaks of hair algae....but maybe the critters were still clinging onto the algae??
 
I've had that happen without the gloves.
There's a lot of microscopic critters floating around in a reef tank that can cause that.There are also types of sponges that if scrubbed or broken off that will release spores that sting.So it really could have been anything.
 
there are a couple different kinds i have the colonial ones that are really hard to get rid of i will look for a pic of them. and there is a free floating form they are related to jelly fish the free floating ones usually do not live long in our tanks and they both can give a good sting
 
I'll bet you had a few bristles in your fingers from the worms, and kept moving them further into your skin my rubbing them while working...bristleworms can and do live in hair algae...the next time it happens, look closely at your fingers and hands in good lighting and you'll see small white bristles/needles sticking out of your skin. Use hot water to wash you hand, and they fall right out.
 
I must have so many callouses on my hands that the bristles dont bother me. I grab hair algea out all the time with bristle worms crawling around. Havent noticed anything.

Brian
 
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