Anyone have experience with Palytoxin poisoning?

[Cherie cook]

Just resetting up my tank after long road trip from NY to CO. The rock rode in a large cooler with a heater and a power head. Still because of delays with unpacking tank didn’t get set up for over two weeks so most of the stuff on the rocks was dead. While unpacking the rock I noticed a piece with some shreds of some sort of polyps, which I scraped at abit and then rinsed and put in the tank. Within an hour my husband and I are both coughing, more short of breath than we have been( we moved to 9000 feet above sea level). Even the dogs won’t eat their food. My question is what do I do with the rock now? Should I take it out of the tank? Is the toxin floating around in the water? I’m sort of afraid to handle it again. Would carbon remove it?

 

[EmdeReef]

Just resetting up my tank after long road trip from NY to CO. The rock rode in a large cooler with a heater and a power head. Still because of delays with unpacking tank didn’t get set up for over two weeks so most of the stuff on the rocks was dead. While unpacking the rock I noticed a piece with some shreds of some sort of polyps, which I scraped at abit and then rinsed and put in the tank. Within an hour my husband and I are both coughing, more short of breath than we have been( we moved to 9000 feet above sea level). Even the dogs won’t eat their food. My question is what do I do with the rock now? Should I take it out of the tank? Is the toxin floating around in the water? I’m sort of afraid to handle it again. Would carbon remove it?

1 part bleach to 9 parts water for about 30 mins will neutralize palytoxin as well as kill any remaining palys.

 

[Cherie cook]

In my tank?

 

[Michael Gilbreath]

No remove from tank place in bucket or what ever you have bleach in tank would not be good. I would use carbon to if you have it.

 

[EmdeReef]

In my tank?

You can do it in your tank if there’s nothing alive in the tank.

 

[Cherie cook]

No remove from tank place in bucket or what ever you have bleach in tank would not be good. I would use carbon to if you have it.

Haha....I knew that couldn’t be right! I do have some carbon so I will put that in. I don’t want to kill all my live rock now, lol

 

[Cherie cook]

Haha....I knew that couldn’t be right! I do have some carbon so I will put that in. I don’t want to kill all my live rock now, lol

Oh shoot...we don’t even have any bleach! As I said we just moved here. And we live on the side of a mountain with winding dirt roads and it’s snowing like you wouldn’t believe so no going to the store tonite! Maybe I will just put it outside for now.

 

[Michael Gilbreath]

welcome to the fun states I live in NV and the only roads that are paved around me or the highways everything else is good old dirty roads. Not snowing here but been raining for the last couple days so everything is a muddy mess. Probably should not have said that watch when I get up for work in morning will probably have snow now LOL.

 

[Cherie cook]

Oh shoot...we don’t even have any bleach! As I said we just moved here. And we live on the side of a mountain with winding dirt roads and it’s snowing like you wouldn’t believe so no going to the store tonite! Maybe I will just put it outside for now.

1 part bleach to 9 parts water for about 30 mins will neutralize palytoxin as well as kill any remaining palys.

so This morning my daughter calls me...both her and her husband and two young children were up sick all night, everything from nausea and vomiting, coughing and shortness of breath to metallic taste and sore throat! They were at my house last evening literally 5-6 hours after my paly scraping episode, for maybe an hour. We had windows and doors open (despite the snowy weather) and I never dreamed there could still be some toxin hanging around!! My husband and I are feeling a bit better today...luckily my daughter is an ER nurse and set us up with some steroids, and we have an o2 concentrator for acclimation to the altitude. So we both wore oxygen all night. I’m still quite worried about the toxin possibly being in the house still. I put a ton of carbon in the sump last night and we wiped the kitchen down with bleach. The offending rock is in bleach water out on the porch( if the bleach doesn’t kill it this Colorado spring weather should). Windows are open. Can anyone further advise? Not a lot of info out there on decontamination of the environment!

 

[EmdeReef]

I’m sorry for your problems. Palytoxin can aerosolize, which is very likely what happened when you moved the rocks. The toxin won’t necessarily linger in the air for long but very small quantity could cause the symptoms you describe.

There’s limited data on carbon effectiveness, one study pointed that fresh carbon will remove up to 99% over 24hrs. Keep in mind that lab settings are difficult to replicate in a tank so we just don’t know how long and how much it takes in an aquarium with live rocks etc.

I understand your concerns over preserving your live rock but based on your description I would say there’s not much live rock after that long anyway and you may be better off bleaching the whole tank. Plays are notoriously difficult to spot and can still be in rock crevices. The only safe method that’s available in homes is bleach.