cross contamination

[i love fish]

how easy can cross contamination between 2 tanks occur, and how can it be done exactly, and what's the best way to prevent it?
thank you

 

[cranberry]

Keep your supplies separate. I have 10 tanks and colour cordinate what goes with each tank. Even my pipettes I use to draw up water to test for SG is coloured.

 

[i love fish]

that's a really good idea. lets say hypothetically if I used something from 1 tank and put it in another tank but afew days later when it was dry but i hadn't washed it after using it in tank number 1. can a cross contamination occur?

 

[gmann1139]

Highly unlikely. Everything in SW is 'designed' to be in SW. If the water evaporates, little will survive for very long.
The big thing to do is to keep any uncycled or quarantine tanks separate from any DTs. I don't go as far as Cranberry, but I do perform all testing on maintenance on my DTs, and then on my QT, so nothing flows 'downhill' into the DTs.