Sad

[DangerDave]

redfishbluefish has been around awhile. Did you see his above post? There's been a few people over the years that have had a bad reaction to the stuff.

Yup, just above he mentioned touching them in tank gave him a serious reaction. I haven’t had the same experience. Is that a severe reaction, or a poisoning? I don’t know, my question is how come some of us can touch them with an issue? That sounds like an allergic reaction. If it’s a poisoning then i should experience the same thing right? I dunno, I’m asking not telling...

 

[Salted]

I'm going to agree with @DangerDave . While I realize I'm kinda new around here, I've been handling/fragging zoas and palys to spread around my tank and my sons' for several months now. So far, no reaction at all. Having heard about this I wear glasses, but really part of that is I need reading glasses anyway. No gloves in the tank ever. For myself I'm going to continue to be unconcerned. For those that have reactions or are unsure you'll get no bother from me for wearing gloves and keeping yourselves safe as you see fit. For the poor gentlemen in Texas that died my condolences to his family.

 

[Mark_C]

This was a post I made 2 years back after moving a zoa plug with my bare hand.
Eyes killed me for 3 days.

Wash those hands folks...

I often reach into my tanks to replace snail-plowed coral to its position, recover a scraper, place a frag exactly where I want it, etc... Never had a problem in all the years I've been doing this. And I've gotten lazy. Lazy means that I slowly moved away from gloves, then away from the...

www.njreefers.org

 

[redfishbluefish]

Please Google Palytoxin, Palytoxin Poisoning, Palytoxin death, Palytoxin on skin, Palytoxin symptoms, etc. Google one or all of these and you’ll find 10’s of thousands of hits. As Curt has pointed out, I’m old...oh wait, he said I’ve been around for a while….but I’m also old. Palytoxin is one of the deadliest natural toxins. It was used by some societies as a poison on spears and darts. The amount of toxin on any one type of paly/zoa can range from none to loaded. I can’t remember which ones….I think red and green palys from somewhere, maybe asia, that had virtually no toxin in them. Yet other varieties were loaded with the toxin. Please do whatever you want to do. But since I like living, I’ll be the one wearing gloves any time I’m handling zoas/palys. I remember a story from a number of years ago of someone cooking rock, thinking “cooking” was literally cooking….like in the oven. Guess what…..dead from palytoxin. And for you young ones, when someone says cooking rock, they mean putting it in saltwater with a little flow with no light. Don’t ever put rock in the oven, palys/zoas or not.

 

[redfishbluefish]

HERE's an article from MASNA. The right hand of the picture in this article is what both my hands looked liked after a couple hours of contacting palys/zoas.

 

[eholceker]

I dunno the right answer but I touch these things all the time without issue. I just cut up about 50 frags of zoas and palys last weekend. I would usually wear gloves (if I never get bristleworm bristles stuck in me again it’ll be too soon) but I was out of them. I understand there’s a danger, but maybe a bit overblown? I don’t eat them, and don’t boil any rocks, so that probably helps.

Is tank dilution and carbon enough to handle the toxicity? I threw a rock with 50 or so yellow death palys in my sump, they slowly withered away. No reaction from me. I do run a small reactor (std brs size) of carbon that I change every couple/few/when I remember weeks.

Someone’s gotta have the answer, anyone in the club has to have real knowledge on this?

Dilution is really all in perspective. You can have a lot of coral load in a small volume of water and vice versa. Coral Alleopathy and toxins are definitly legit. Carbon use should really pull it out of the water column. Perfect example would be those keeping sinularia and acros. Without carbon in the aquarium acro growth is stunted. With carbon growth rates pick back up.

 

[eholceker]

But how do you know that it was Paltoxin and not a toxin from a nearby coral, sponge, etc. Everything in our tanks are toxic. I almost lost my ring finger from a Euphyllia. Here is a picture of my arm. Our tanks are basically recycling toilet bowls. You are more likely to pick up a vibrio infection than get palytoxin poisoning.

 

[eholceker]

Please Google Palytoxin, Palytoxin Poisoning, Palytoxin death, Palytoxin on skin, Palytoxin symptoms, etc. Google one or all of these and you’ll find 10’s of thousands of hits. As Curt has pointed out, I’m old...oh wait, he said I’ve been around for a while….but I’m also old. Palytoxin is one of the deadliest natural toxins. It was used by some societies as a poison on spears and darts. The amount of toxin on any one type of paly/zoa can range from none to loaded. I can’t remember which ones….I think red and green palys from somewhere, maybe asia, that had virtually no toxin in them. Yet other varieties were loaded with the toxin. Please do whatever you want to do. But since I like living, I’ll be the one wearing gloves any time I’m handling zoas/palys. I remember a story from a number of years ago of someone cooking rock, thinking “cooking” was literally cooking….like in the oven. Guess what…..dead from palytoxin. And for you young ones, when someone says cooking rock, they mean putting it in saltwater with a little flow with no light. Don’t ever put rock in the oven, palys/zoas or not.

These are the palys that are supposed to be the most dangerous. The ugly button ones.

 

[ericrodriguez]

I Move and cut Zoanthids with no gloves and some times with little cuts in my hand and thanks god nothing has happened. But I’ll try to be more careful from now on

 

[DangerDave]

I Move and cut Zoanthids with no gloves and some times with little cuts in my hand and thanks god nothing has happened. But I’ll try to be more careful from now on

Yeah i agree it’s right to be cautious. I’m gonna run out to harbor freight and replenish my gloves. Last night I thought more about @redfishbluefish story, and the poor fella that was killed. I don’t want my reef to be what takes me out.

 

[ericrodriguez]

Yeah i agree it’s right to be cautious. I’m gonna run out to harbor freight and replenish my gloves. Last night I thought more about @redfishbluefish story, and the poor fella that was killed. I don’t want my reef to be what takes me out.

Totally agree.
Also Palytoxin death most be very painful.

 

[DEL]

I still remember seeing posts on forums about people literally putting live rock in ovens.....to 'bake' them.

 

[Deleted member 27248]