Best Bit Of Kit

I've just received the long scissors and 2 different forceps for planting. Best piece of kit to date. Makes planting, tidying, clipping, placing of plants so simple. £5'99 off ebay. They are much better quality than I expected.   

I own the same set. Very useful indeed.

I dont have the straight ones but I wish I did, they'd make planting easier.

BDS, my dwarf puffers (<2cm) are reluctant to eat frozen bloodworm as they have a preference for live bloodworm in their feeding pod. There are times when I only have frozen, which are not great in the pod, so I grab a few in the tweezers and move then in front of the puffers, to look like live worms. They seem fine with that.
My platies and danios will also eat them this way, but (thankfully) will also eat them when they sink, which the puffers are reluctant to do. Luckily most of the fish are happy with flake, so platies and danios only get worms occasionally.
Oh yes please, video would be brilliant.
 

I really like the idea of the fish responding to the dinner gong, so to speak - you have very sophisticated and up market fish.  I can imagine them tucking in their napkin taking their place at the dinner table and waiting to be served. 

Mine just go crazy when anyone walks near the tank - always hopeful but frequently disappointed.

Anne

Wet sleeves are a hazard of the hobby  BTW if you're a bit liberal with deodorant or body sprays and you get it on your arms, make sure you rinse them well first.   

Wet sleeves are a hazard of the hobby

Another hazard of the hobby is a hair falling into the tank, as happened during my first week of tropical fishkeeping. A poor tetra ended up with a strand of my then-long hair stuck in its mouth, which was clearly agitating it, and it was the following day before it finally dislodged after much stress all round for all 6 tetras, my husband and myself, given botched attempts to capture the fish to dislodge the hair. Daft as I might look, I bought a very fetching hairnet specifically for the purpose of water tank changes but still find that a strand of my hair might attach itself to my jumper and inadvertently end up in the fishtank, so I tend to do a thorough check pre- water changes.

Am I being over cautious here in worrying about cleanliness/contamination?

Think it's inevitable that, occasionally, the hands/arm end up in the tank without thinking. However, if you've put on sunscreen or some other type of lotion/cream, then I'd make an extra special effort in such situations to be careful to do a rinse before putting arms/hand in the tank. Yesterday, I had been cleaning, got distracted by a phonecall just as I was finishing, later tried to adjust the filter using a longhandled algae scraper, it slipped and so my hand ended up right inside the tank, then the realisation dawned on me that I may not have washed my hands post-cleaning. Very luckily, all seems fine so far and I've since done a water change. Situations don't always go according to plan, unfortunately, so best to be prepared.

Some great tips, Sue.

I either wear a sleeveless top to clean my tanks or I use a giant freezer clip to hold a short sleeve up onto the shoulder. I never, ever wear long sleeves

...and the alternative, for those like me who feel cold unless they have multiple long-sleeved layers on, is to keep a couple of spare hair bobbles round the wrist, pull the sleeves up to biceps level pre- immersing arms in tank, and use the hair bobbles to keep the sleeves securely in place.

Let's hope we fishkeepers never have to answer the door during tank cleaning, what with all these accoutrements such as hairnets on the head, freezer clips and hair bobbles attached to clothing, etc. 

Shaving your armpits Paddy - very metrosexual.

I had the joy of answering the door during tank cleaning this evening. It was a cold caller wanting to know if I wanted information on home improvements. I obviously looked fabulous  , but I figure it serves him right.

Littlefish and BDS - 

Next time such a cold caller appears, in addition to leaving them speechless at how we look, we ought to put on an extremely serious or possibly crazed expression and tell them that the only way to improve a home is to acquire more fishtanks.    Hopefully, between appearances and comment, this will be effective in getting rid of the cold callers.