Entire family hospitalized due to palytoxin

[Peach02]

Thing is o my a handful of them actually contain the toxins.. I don’t know anyone who keeps them or anywhere you can actually buy one.. this is more like an old wives tale common days. If memory serves there are 6 maybe seven select species that have the toxin. 99% do not.

This is why I’m calling crap in this story.. is it possible they bought a frag from an old timer who still has toxic versions.. yes. It it probable that someone has kept a tank with these running for 20 years and still selling feats of them.. hmmmm possible yes but I think I’ve got a better chance of winning the powerball and being hit by lighting on the same day then what is claimed.

I wouldn't say the chances are so slim, my LFS that I work at has Paly's for sale

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

I wouldn't say the chances are so slim, my LFS that I work at has Paly's for sale

Was going to respond again pointing out ignorance here but instead I’ll just post this and let everyone get informed..

The Dangers (and Myths) of Zoa Toxicity – Part 1

The oceans are full of creatures capable of killing us; one of the more surprising marine menaces is a group of popular aquarium corals known variably as “but

reefs.com

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

Short version.. the bright colorful corals we buy are not toxic.. the ones that are not bright and have white specs on the polyps are.. and they are very rare to come across..

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

Short version.. the bright colorful corals we buy are not toxic.. the ones that are not bright and have white specs on the polyps are.. and they are very rare to come across..

I’ll further this and end by saying once again this is they type of misinformation that lends to these discussions and stories.. my father heard from a guy who’s brother told him he over heard a stranger talking to someone that x happened.. it’s total nonsense..

We as a COmmunity have perpetuated this lie to the extreme that we now have convicted doctors it’s real.. how confident are you of being properly diagnosed next trip to the hospital now?

 

[motortrendz]

Ok... and you’re so sure of this how?

There was an article a while back about a guy boiling his rocks to "clean" them. The whole family got sick and the dog died. The palytoxon became airborne in the steam. Most cases are all from mishandling and not using common sense imo.

 

[Cherie cook]

This is my issue with this story.. I’ve seen enough stories of people here in Florida with flesh eating disease and hospitals are quick to dismiss this. Something this rare? Idk seems bit fishy to me I’ve also never heard of issues airborn. I always wear gloves with softies just in case but this seems a little far fetched to me. More like the doctor or hospital isnteachjng for a reason and someone with a bit of knowledge stepped in said. Something false and everyone else jumps on the band wagon. People have been keeping corals for 100 years and nothing to this extent has ever happened before. History, logic and some common sense says this is a story. Someone more versed will chime in on this but I don’t see bird falling from the sky over a reef cause some corals got upset. This smells bad to me so until a versed biologist says different and provides proof that’s what it will stay.

Either way I’ll cintinue handling my softies with gloves and eye eye protection cause we all know some can be deadly but this that are are but few and rarely found in tanks..

Happened to me and my family...so not all that rare!

 

[Hyde2406]

Know what you put in your tank and have a little common sense and there’s zero issues with zoanthids.

I wish I could like this a thousand times! I just spent 5 min venting to my husband (who doesn't care at all) about how nothing should go into a tank without research! Ugh

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

Happened to me and my family...so not all that rare!

I don’t know if you had one of these ugly versions in your tank or not. But I’m not going to argue about this.. these are scientific undebatable facts..

then there is I heard from a person who heard from a person beliefs. I’m sorry your family was sick. However despite what you believe it were told there is zero factual medical and scientific studies to back that it had even .01% to do with 99.99999% of zoas commenly kept or sold.

What’s sad is we’ve as a community spread this lie so much for so long we evenbhve doctors and hospital believing it now .next time you go to the doctors how confident are you now in being properly diagnosed?

 

[Hyde2406]

I wish I could like this a thousand times! I just spent 5 min venting to my husband (who doesn't care at all) about how nothing should go into a tank without research! Ugh

This is my rock of death

 

[Cherie cook]

I wish I could like this a thousand times! I just spent 5 min venting to my husband (who doesn't care at all) about how nothing should go into a tank without research! Ugh

Yup...the ones we had in our tank looked just like this. Dull, mottled green.

 

[Cherie cook]

I don’t know if you had one of these ugly versions in your tank or not. But I’m not going to argue about this.. these are scientific undebatable facts..

then there is I heard from a person who heard from a person beliefs. I’m sorry your family was sick. However despite what you believe it were told there is zero factual medical and scientific studies to back that it had even .01% to do with 99.99999% of zoas commenly kept or sold.

What’s sad is we’ve as a community spread this lie so much for so long we evenbhve doctors and hospital believing it now .next time you go to the doctors how confident are you now in being properly diagnosed?

Hahaha....despite what I believe you’re the one who’s right? ;Smuggrin

 

[DMG Reef]

Was going to respond again pointing out ignorance here but instead I’ll just post this and let everyone get informed..

The Dangers (and Myths) of Zoa Toxicity – Part 1

The oceans are full of creatures capable of killing us; one of the more surprising marine menaces is a group of popular aquarium corals known variably as “but

reefs.com

This article you linked does not back up your claims at all. It clearly states that P. Toxica is common and widespread in the aquarium trade as colonies and hitchhikers on other corals. Advising new reefers to not be diligent in handling these palys is irresponsible. Of course it's a threat and should be treated as such.

 

[EmptyWallet]

We hear enough stories about this happening to warrant warning the community. Your average 'mum and dad newbie reefer' can't be expected to tell the difference between a typically toxic and likely not toxic paly. We should spread the word not to scrub or boil them in the middle of the living room whilst your kids are watching TV. Better safe than sorry etc. Until someone does a formal clinical trial with humans ingesting the gases from all the different types of Palys, I don't think we can say its scientifically proven to be false (nor can we say its true but again better safe than sorry)

 

[mattzang]

https://reefs.com/2015/09/15/the-dangers-and-myths-of-zoa-toxicity-part-2/

Another species which could cause confusion is the rather distinctive Atlantic endemic Palythoa grandis. As the name implies, these are some of the largest button polyps, reaching upwards of 25mm in disc diameter. The color patterns are fairly diagnostic, showing an unusual mottling not common in the Pacific species. The tentacles of grandis are miniscule for such a large polyp, and there are no capitulary ridges. In large polyps, the oral disc is often held in a characteristically convoluted shape. These are uncommonly seen and only available from Caribbean collectors, with colonies typically having few individual polyps. It is unknown if this species contains palytoxin—P. grandis has at times been placed near to heliodiscus in genetic studies, so it is certainly plausible that this may be a dangerous species.

i've seen those things at fish stores a bunch of times

idk man, feel free to post a youtube video of you fragging, poking, prodding, squirting the zoa juice into your eyes of numerous types of zoas so we can get to the bottom of this.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Happened to me and my family...so not all that rare!

What exactly happened to you and your family and how did it happen? Not being insensitive but for an entire family to be poisoned by paly toxin there must have been some very misguided actions to take place.

 

[happyhourhero]

All cases I have read about involve people making terrible choices like boiling rocks, pressure washing rocks, scrubbing rocks, slicing palys, handling palys outside of the water. Put the coral in your tank and leave it alone and you will be fine. If you must handle them, wear eye protection, wash hands, stay off the national news.

 

[BlackSunshine]

Darth, Didn't you just start your first SW tank like a week ago?? When did you become an expert on this?
Did that one zoanthid frag you bought teach you so much?

First corals and issues in new tank.

Recently setup a 10g nano. Spent the money to get clean live rock from a lfs display tank as well as 17ish lbs of live oolight Carib sea (2” ish bed) as I’m not always patient and the tank was kinda spur of the moment build) I’ve been keeping freshwater tanks of all sorts mostly large predator...

www.reef2reef.com

I came across this article that has some pretty good info and insight on the topic. It would indicate that palytoxin may be more common in some marine life. So to be so dismissive of the danger with so little actual experience can lead to a serious mishap. Without actual scientific analysis of these various species cataloging what ones do and do not have the ability to produce the toxin, we shouldn't assume that only the ones in the old hawaiian story that discovered them are the ones that carry palytoxin.

Palytoxin - MASNA

Palytoxin The Power of Palytoxin By Amy McKenna M.S., Dr. Kevin Erickson Ph.D. Published August 21, 2016 STOP, if you suspect you are suffering from palytoxin exposure, seek immediate medical attention. PDF Available Here Discovery A Hawaiian legend tells the tale of how villagers on Maui, in...

masna.org

 

[Cherie cook]

What exactly happened to you and your family and how did it happen? Not being insensitive but for an entire family to be poisoned by paly toxin there must have been some very misguided actions to take place.

Posted the whole story on another thread...something like “more education needed” under Reef discussion forum. But briefly...we moved from NY to Colorado in May. Drove tank, fish and live rock all that way stored in large coolers. When putting live rock back in tank a couple weeks later I noticed some shreds of tissue that looked mostly dead on one piece of rock...it was literally just hanging off the rock. So I scraped the tissue off the rock into the sink(not wanting to put dying stuff into the tank) and rinsed it down. Within 10-20 minutes I started to feel wheezy/short of breath. My daughter and grandkids meanwhile arrived for dinner. They were only here for maybe 30-45 min, growing concerned about my breathing...plus they were starting to notice a funny, metallic-like taste and scratchy throats. Daughter calls me about an hour later...they are having abdominal pains, vomiting, kids had fevers and scratchy throats. In the meantime my husband and I are both short of breath...but luckily we had oxygen available because of moving to a much higher altitude than we were used to. So we took the dogs, the cat and ourselves into the bedroom, closed the door and put on the oxygen. We had actually called poison control to ask their advice about whether we should go to the ER and they told us that there is no specific treatment for Palytoxin other than supportive care. So if our symptoms were generally improving rather than getting worse, it was safe to stay home. By the next morning everyone was ok...except the dogs refused to eat for 2 more days. My theory is that my husband and I got the worst of the respiratory symptoms because the toxin was aerosolized right after I scrubbed at it. We never did get the GI symptoms that my daughter and grandkids did, for some reason.

 

[Cherie cook]

All cases I have read about involve people making terrible choices like boiling rocks, pressure washing rocks, scrubbing rocks, slicing palys, handling palys outside of the water. Put the coral in your tank and leave it alone and you will be fine. If you must handle them, wear eye protection, wash hands, stay off the national news.

This is true...it’s only when they are injured in some way that they give off the toxin.

 

[FugeTown]

Jus

Kudos to their medical emergency to realize what that was. Saved their lives as well as protecting first responders. Palytoxin is no joke.

Just fragged a zoa with a cut on my hand no gloves , then read this as I sip on a beer and wonder “do I feel lucky?”