Palythoa Induced Tank Crash

[Bill from OZ]

I've had this 29g reef tank set up for almost a year now. Everything has been going quite well. Last weekend my wife talked me into some ugly brown palythoas. I already have 120g I'm planning on moving into and I figured the large colony would add some depth considering my frags are young and relatively small.

On the way home all of the water leaked out of the bag. I suspect they were without water for over an hour.

After placing them in my tank my corals began sliming over. I suspected amonia. Amonia with tested zero. Nitrates tested zero. I let it be for the night. By time I got off work the next day most of my SPS was dead. The victims are listed here.

Candy Cane
Sun Coral
Mushroom Colony
Acans
Micromussa
Christmas Tree Favia
Frogspawn
Ricordea
All Bristle worms (maybe not so bad)
Kids' College Fund

I now suspect palytoxins. Does this sound reasonable? Anyone else had anything like this happen before? I've done a couple water changes but should I take any other measures?

 

[Antics]

I don't know if that caused your crash, but if the sequence of events played out exactly like that I dont think its a coincidence.

I personally don't keep any type of palys/zoas just because of my fear of the toxin. It's irrational, but I think it's one of the more likely ways to seriously injure yourself in this hobby.

 

[SandJ]

Yes, it sounds exactly like the palythoas caused it. Julian Sprung has an awesome video where he talks about palytoxin. At MACNA last year he described a similar situation where he was moving palythoas from one tank to another...caused tank crash(es) plus made him sick.

I have a bunch of green button polyps in a tank that I would like to thin out. It is my "coral weed" tank full of GSP, GBP and Xenia so I am just letting everything be. I do have GSP growing on my Xenia though lol

Funny side note, I think I could have the most magnificent tank full of bounce mushrooms and SPS but no one would pay attention to it because they are mesmerized by the Xenia :rolleyes:

 

[Bill from OZ]

Thank you for the fast replies. Hard lesson learned here. I definitely won't be taking any palys over to my 120g. I suppose just a quarantine would have prevented an almost total loss. Now I'm concerned that these things could be a danger to young children?

 

[Bill from OZ]

Scratch that. What I'm reading says they're harmful to everyone and possibly deadly in at the level of 30mg! I guess I had read before that they were toxic just didn't realize how bad they really are.:confused: