Entire family hospitalized due to palytoxin
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thanks for this info. I'm looking to purchase my first zoas and something I didn't even consider. I know I'll be much more careful handling etc.!
The link from @
Darth.Daddy12
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Between the two stores, eight additional specimens were acquired. Of these, three were found to be highly toxic (Table 3).
It is fair to say that the rest of the report describes drastically varying levels of toxicity across sub-species. Still, not all that helpful in delineating to the vendor / hobbyist community beyond "be careful".
Darth.Daddy12
Palytoxin Found in Palythoa sp. Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Sold in the Home Aquarium Trade
Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) are colonial anemones that contain one of the deadliest toxins ever discovered, palytoxin (LD[50] in mice 300 ng/kg), but it is generally believed that highly toxic species are not sold in the home aquarium trade. We ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The search string:
Between the two stores, eight additional specimens were acquired. Of these, three were found to be highly toxic (Table 3).
It is fair to say that the rest of the report describes drastically varying levels of toxicity across sub-species. Still, not all that helpful in delineating to the vendor / hobbyist community beyond "be careful".
Lol...now I’m gonna have to check out your build thread! ;Smuggrin
Ben Pedersen
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About 25 years ago I had some brown and green large palys from Hawaii. While cleaning my tank I handled the palys and was exposed to palytoxin and had similar symptoms. One symptom I had that they didn't mention was a metallic brass taste in my mouth. At the time, the hospital had no idea what cause the sickness, just that I was exposed to some type of toxin. The story does seem to sensationalize a near death experience. When I was exposed I was no where near death... but very sick with a irregular heart beat.
This is a real concern. Most of the corals/palys we keep are completely safe, however, some are not. Wearing gloves and even glasses is a good precautionary measure worth taking especially when handling higher risk animals.
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Yup...we had that metallic taste thing.
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Butuz
Valuable Member
Lol, yes, check it out please and leave a comment!
sam.veilleux30
Well-Known Member
Life is not fair nor is social media!
Peach02
Valuable Member
1. that article and its follow up part 2 show zero proofWas 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 “butreefs.com
2. The Zoanthids it said where poisionous if we believe it are kept in our reefs, shown by the people in this thread and I have seen numerous ones at my LFS
3. essentially yes not all zoanthids are poisonous however to the uneducated eye it is hard to tell, furthermore better safe than sorry
If you dip zoas/palys in hyd. peroxide you need to take special precautions as well. I suffered from what I believe was palytoxin poisoning about 8 years ago and posted the story here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/peroxide-warning.59376/
I do take issue with some comments on here implying that only the plain or ugly palys contain dangerous toxin... have all of them in the trade been tested?? In my case none of mine were ugly and I believe the main culprit was my purple death(how ironic) protopalys.
Also, the current story seems odd though as it doesn't mention how the palytoxin could have been made airborne. They must have at some point boiled the rock or something to poison everyone in the house I would think...
I do take issue with some comments on here implying that only the plain or ugly palys contain dangerous toxin... have all of them in the trade been tested?? In my case none of mine were ugly and I believe the main culprit was my purple death(how ironic) protopalys.
Also, the current story seems odd though as it doesn't mention how the palytoxin could have been made airborne. They must have at some point boiled the rock or something to poison everyone in the house I would think...
Another often overlooked route for palytoxin becoming aerosolized and entering your body is the good old protein skimmer that many reefer's have on their tanks , if a colony of palytoxin containing creatures has been damaged or annoyed for whatever reason within a system it is possible to become airborne and inhaled via that route
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The use of a scrub brush (which seems plausible, as the family was cleaning the aquarium) could also create an aerosol which could easily be breathed in.
Stigigemla
Well-Known Member
In the spring of 2018 I had my last Palytoxin poisoning. I was trying to take out some stones with Palythoa on and some off the bottom glass with a scraper. I thought I had all necessary precautions made but forgeot my trousers. Wearing a halfmask with carbon for breathing double gloves and rainjacket to protect from drops I thought I was safe. And of course every window in the house open. Apparently I had a pair of drops on my legs because they started to itch after a few hours.(No wet spots were ever seen on the trousers.) Checking it I saw that an area of about a full hand with fingers on each leg were swollen and reddish. I checked my pulse as 125 instead of 80 as normal.
I went to hospital emergency. At first they didnt believe me but after seeing my legs there was some action. I was laid on a bed with a pulse monitor while the doctor did some background research. After a few hours the pulse was down to 124 and I went home. I never had rised temperature wich surprised both me and the doctor with that pulse. Next morning pulse normal, the color on the leg was away and they were not that swollen anymore.The other Palythoa poisonings I had was much worse. Even if You are careful and know the risks it is easy to miss one of the precautions.
The Palythoa were frags i got in 2006 and they slowly covered half my 420 gallon tank.
I went to hospital emergency. At first they didnt believe me but after seeing my legs there was some action. I was laid on a bed with a pulse monitor while the doctor did some background research. After a few hours the pulse was down to 124 and I went home. I never had rised temperature wich surprised both me and the doctor with that pulse. Next morning pulse normal, the color on the leg was away and they were not that swollen anymore.The other Palythoa poisonings I had was much worse. Even if You are careful and know the risks it is easy to miss one of the precautions.
The Palythoa were frags i got in 2006 and they slowly covered half my 420 gallon tank.
There are many examples of it being airborn. People boiling rocks, or using an airhose to blow off rocks.
I poisoned myself and my dog because, after a tank crash, i spent hours cleaning off hair algae and throwing it into a bucket. A gooey mess off a large zoa colony, that i thought was long gone, was part of the gunk i was unknowingly pulling up. I dumped the bucket in the tub, used the showerhead to wash it down, and Boom. Poison mist.
You can read more about my experience HERE
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Darth.Daddy12
Active Member
Idk from what I’ve read it has to have direct route to blood..
I do find something interesting though. Just throwing this out there as it makes more sense to me.. you have chlorine in tap water (as well as many other cleaning agents) that you were using to wash off super dirty items from a crashed tank likely lots of detritus with built up ammonia levels in a small unventilated room of your house using possibly hot steamy water..
Sounds like you possibly created mustard gas.
There is one thing in common with what your saying though and that’s introducing water vapor in some form. I’ve never boiled rock to clean it. I see the risk of many other things by doing this even best case you’re standing over a pot of boiling ammonia which alone can burn your lungs.
Darth.Daddy12
Active Member
It’s more too it then that.. I think people are not reading the report correctly and you even referenced it incorrectly..
They first bought 16 different at store 1
If those 16 only one tested positive. It’s the one most of us know to stay away from with the dark single coloration and white dots on heads.. p-hydro something another
They then went to two other stores (part you’re referencing) and purposely looked for as many similar looking ones as possible. Of those only 4 tested for anything and only one exactly resembling the first one was deemed highly toxic.
All versions testing positive were found as a contaminant of love rock or part of non named (assorted) tanks of wild caught indonision.
Even still only 2 types are proven toxic carriers.. the “toxia” and this one pictured which is dry distinct.
The testing was mostly dna testing looking for markers accocisted with the having the ability to possibly but not definitively produce toxin.
To date if this FDA and smitsonian peer reviewed study there is only 2 known toxic versions one of which they couldn’t even get a sample of cause it’s so rare. And then this Indonesian one. The other 4 listed could be toxic to some level based on dna markers but they didn’t extract any toxin from them.
End of the day buy known sought after know species cultured by know sources and you’ll never have need to worry. Buy bright colored stock and stay away from anything that’s solid dark coloration that looks like it has ick.
RichardinTN
Active Member
I can assure you from personal experience, twice (stupidly), that this is NOT BS. There is a very dangerous species, Palythoa heliodiscus, that is still very much in the hobby and trade. I see it in most stores and even online as the cheap, “Ice Blue” Paly although that species has quite a bit of variation in color- mostly greys through browns with that charteristic pattern on the disk. They are incredibly fast growers and spread quickly which is why they often need to be scraped off of rockwork. It’s no joke when it happens, took about a week for my vision to be fully restored, and it’s a pretty miserable experience all in all. Luckily, my second exposure was not as bad as my first but they both took quite a bit of steroids and bronchodilators to get my lungs back open again.
While I don’t think anyone should fear their tanks, I do think that people need to accept the fact that some contents can be dangerous. None of the little Zoanthus species should be much concern but Palythoa heliodiscus is nothing to play with without VERY good precautions.
While I don’t think anyone should fear their tanks, I do think that people need to accept the fact that some contents can be dangerous. None of the little Zoanthus species should be much concern but Palythoa heliodiscus is nothing to play with without VERY good precautions.
I think it happens more often than most reefer's realise or perhaps want to admit to themselves
We were using well water.....no chlorine, no “mustard gas.” It was aerosolized because I scrubbed it and rinsed with water.
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