Friend or Foe Zoa...

[dharmon]

Can someone tell me if this Zoa is a friend or foe....have had some recent coral deaths which are unexplained and in another forum I saw something which was identified as foe (even though it was a bad picture) looked similar)?

 

[JoJosReef]

I don't think that paly is responsible for your other coral deaths unless it's been severely agitated. That said, those green palys are palytoxin producers, and I'd consider them a foe to you. They grow too fast and can poison you if agitated--I ended up in the ER after trying to remove them from a tank breakdown.

 

[BryanM]

Agreed with the above, likely not killing other corals, but I would be very careful handling that. Palytoxins are no joke, if for some reason it gets aerosolized you're in real danger of serious injury.

 

[dharmon]

Thanks to both of you....sounds like maybe I should just remove....the reason I thought it might have something to do with the other corals demise is (prior to the deaths of a frogspawn and a torch) I had a frag plug which had a combination of these and other much prettier zoas mixed.....I wanted to pluck off the Paly but when pulling the rock out of the water I couldnt tell which zoa was which....so I plucked them off with tweezers in the tank....when doing so a few of the polyps released something that was like a stringy liquid...so IDK but sounds like based on your comments they are bad news anyway...certainly do grow fast and are extremley hardy but