I’ll start looking for a local chainmail artisan so I can properly engage in the battle of tank maintenance lol.I wear Kevlar gloves when I work in my tank (he put holes in the rubber ones) if that answers the question. There is definitely a risk, mine knows that anything that touches the water (including my fingers) are a food option.
I think color is largely luck of the draw - I got mine from worldwide fish and pets and he has a lot of orange.
There is a purple variant and more recently a more orange one out there.
I may need to do some digging to see if I can find a place where I can choose the individual fish. I’d be happy to pay a bit more if I could find someone willing to do it. I checked out the purples and they’re pretty neat too.