New guy - advice appreciated

Fish Think Pink · Oct 15, 2022

Judson_f said:
To all who care or see -
I took the coral advice to add more bacterial diversity. Two clowns & one mushroom tomorrow. In a twist of events - the company *who was fantastic - will elaborate more once everything arrives and all is well with a good review* said the mushroom is smaller than what they would normally sell/send. To make up for that they offered a free bonus frag. I told them hey the tank is new etc etc please keep that in mind if you do - send a tough coral that can handle young tank/novice in the hobby. So they told me they were sending a Zoa. Lol. Since then I’ve spent all day doing research and found that most Zoa’s have an undetectable amount of palytoxin and got deep into all that big controversy in the reefing hobby. I think it’ll be okay - I have a perfect SMALL rock island to put it on to keep it isolated and small. But holy cow am I nervous from those horror stories and I have my 2 y/o daughter to worry about. Not to mention spouse would KILL me if she found out I put potentially toxic stuff in the house … so blast me with all advice and personal opinions etc please already got nitrile gloves to put it in the tank should I even go through with it. I just have such a hard time turning down free

So, palytoxin is real, about half the time I clean my tank my dominant hand (that bumps into zoas) ends up with rash that takes a week to fade... I put it in the same category as virginia creeper and perhaps poison ivy... but zoas are way prettier and I wouldn't give up my zoas...

Its good to be informed. Its good you have gloves. Keep an antihistamine around in case you forget to use gloves and have a reaction.

Your 2 year old shouldn't be IN your tank and I've never worried about anyone else in the house because of my zoas. My boyfriend has never had any reaction to anything in tank ever. Everyone is different. If you find you have too strong a reaction to your zoa, then take it to your LFS for store credit or swap/trade/sell it locally.

Once my hand starts to itch, I always think, I should have worn gloves... lol ... but I still never do when it comes to my zoas.

Now pineapple sponges, those I *WILL* wear gloves...

Judson_f · Oct 15, 2022

Fish Think Pink said:
So, palytoxin is real, about half the time I clean my tank my dominant hand (that bumps into zoas) ends up with rash that takes a week to fade... I put it in the same category as virginia creeper and perhaps poison ivy... but zoas are way prettier and I wouldn't give up my zoas...

Its good to be informed. Its good you have gloves. Keep an antihistamine around in case you forget to use gloves and have a reaction.

Your 2 year old shouldn't be IN your tank and I've never worried about anyone else in the house because of my zoas. My boyfriend has never had any reaction to anything in tank ever. Everyone is different. If you find you have too strong a reaction to your zoa, then take it to your LFS for store credit or swap/trade/sell it locally.

Once my hand starts to itch, I always think, I should have worn gloves... lol ... but I still never do when it comes to my zoas.

Now pineapple sponges, those I *WILL* wear gloves...

Thank you for the shared experience!!!