So i poisoned myself and my family with palytoxine last night. How do i get rid of the palys safely?

[ZoWhat]

I've had pretty severe palytoxin poisoning before. Bc my 180g DT is 95% palys and zoas

I'm not sure the event causes of your house illnesses but one paly polyp in a powerhead being cleaned shouldn't effect anyone unless you stood over the powerhead breathing everything in. But every situation is different. So NOT doubting your story

Im a stupid stupid man, who scrubbed over 200-300 palys from LRs with a toothbrush with my bare arms in the tank. All bc i didnt want green palys anymore.

I NOW DESTROY UNWANTED PALYS IN-TANK BY COVERING COATING THEM WITH A HOMEMADE KALK PASTE. THE 40+dKH PASTE CHEMICALLY BURNS THEM OVER 48HRS

My symptoms:
* rapid heartbeat
* throat and chest CLOSED up making it feel like breathing thru a straw
* extreme tiredness
* headache

Symptoms lasted 4-5 days but symptoms got better each day. NEVER felt like I was gonna die, just sick. I've had much worse bouts of the Flu

Idk what to tell you if s single polyp being ground thru a powerhead would make an entire household sick. During my toothbrush scrubbing episode NO ONE in my house was effect at all but myself....

I've since handled palys and been touched by the slimecoat but always immediately wash my hands and no further incident have ever happened since the stupid scrubbing incident

Palytoxin is like working a chainsaw. You must deeply respect both. But people totally flipping out bc they touched a paly colony is phobic to me. But each his own

I frag palys all the time gloveless bc I need the dexterity to frag. I know to avoid the polyp squirting juice in my face. And to minimize touching the slimecoat

I touch palys all the time while fragging but use caution and always wash hands immediately afterwards.

Where palys get dangerous is when they are scrubbed or any activity where they a slimeup with a release of defense toxins.

But palys in your tank, undisturbed are beautiful to watch grow and are safe to keep. I would say you're a 1,000,000 times more likely to die in a house fire than die keeping palys



.

 

[Reefbuds]

It seems as tho some people are more susceptible to playtoxin than others. I had zoas for a while, wont get palys tho for this reason
I'm glad everyone is ok.

 

[tonyftlaud]

Deleted

 

[chicago]

Good to hear you and your family are doing better. Thank you for posting the pic..

 

[pdisner]

Are you sure it was Palytoxin? The only reason I ask is that your symptoms didn’t sound like when I got sick with it. I was hospitalized off and on for a year and still have lingering numbness. One admission I was in the hospital for a whole month, 30 days. This admission they had to do dialysis because of Acute Renal Failure.
I took the liberty to post screen shots of the CDC bulletin. Most physicians have never even heard of palytoxin. The doctors I felt with then laughed at me about the issue. Like I was making it up. It never hurts to read from a reliable source. It’s a fairly well written page. Thanks for letting me share.

 

[CenlaReefer]

I find the most toxic palys are not that attractive. I do like the look of the grandis palys. I believe those are high in toxicity. Still, I am sure the larger size makes them easier to frag. Anyone have experience with fragging the grandis palys?

 

[Katrina71]

Hi all... Trying to upload a pic here, its an OLD setup, from times of trouble, clearly shows why im somewhat (a lot) unhappy about putting it up for anyone to see :/ but the best i could do atm, the pics i took this week all show totally wrong colour.
Can see them in the right side lower corner there. I know for sure have better pictures somewhere but... Sigh

Thanks for the pic. I have the same in my tank.

 

[NJ Reefer]

I had what I believe were the same Paly’s When I purchased them, the they known as Artic Ice. Not very attractive and spread like crazy. I was able to eliminate them over time using AptasiaX. I only did a few at a time because I was concerned about spewing toxins into the DT. The little buggers kept popping up after I thought they were gone, but I eventually was able to eradicate them for good.

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Early on I scrubbed my rock to get rid of them. Filled my sink with tank water and mixed a strong kalk solution to try and get rid of them. Was sick for days after that. I had no clue what it was. About a year later, I read a post on another site about a man boiling his live rock inside his house. He almost took his whole family out.

My 2 cents is it's in our tanks more than we would like to admit. Just dont be careless in your PM. Dont wash your rock, or scrub outside of the tank. Honesty, you can get some nasty infections from cuts due to handling rock or critters.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Wow, I have been handling palys with my hands for years, barehanded. Grandis, deaths and the green "proto" palys. The slime is nasty and I have had cuts on my hands probably everytime I handled them. I guess I am lucky then?
Some of these stories I feel are panic induced because symptoms are not right and the method of exposure is iffy. Or the people involved are just extreemly sensitive? I don't know. The common theme I have seen in certain exposures is not being able to breath.
A guy in my area tried to boil a rock of palys in his kitchen to kill them off the rock, he almost died and was in the hospital for a while, so the palys almost won. He definitely had poisoning.
But I feel there is a big difference between this and other people having skimmers and powerheads and such blow poison into the air to affect the whole house. Also the ones that say, water got in my mouth, is hard to believe unless they were chopping up palys in the tank before hand.

Whatever the case is be reefers should be careful, not paranoid.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I should add the guy in my area that boiled the rock also had long lasting negative affects on his health after his exposure, it wasn't a one night thing. I think it took a year or longer for him to start to feel near normal again.

 

[PeterG]

Krissu,
Glad to hear you and your family are OK. Very surprised to hear of everyone's experiences. Quite an eye opener! I had no idea.
When I bought my only paly my LFS called it a Nuclear Green Grande Palythoa (Photo below) and told me only to be careful and wear gloves when handling.
I recall moving it around once of twice to find a place where it looked happy but don't think I heeded the advice to wear protection and don't remember any reaction.
I'm guessing that everyone has varying degrees of sensitivity to toxins. I've been stung by wasps and scorpions with nothing more than some local pain and a bit of swelling. That said, I'll definitely exercise more caution with these corals in the future.

Is this one of the poisonous ones?

 

[MnFish1]

Wow, I have been handling palys with my hands for years, barehanded. Grandis, deaths and the green "proto" palys. The slime is nasty and I have had cuts on my hands probably everytime I handled them. I guess I am lucky then?
Some of these stories I feel are panic induced because symptoms are not right and the method of exposure is iffy. Or the people involved are just extreemly sensitive? I don't know. The common theme I have seen in certain exposures is not being able to breath.
A guy in my area tried to boil a rock of palys in his kitchen to kill them off the rock, he almost died and was in the hospital for a while, so the palys almost won. He definitely had poisoning.
But I feel there is a big difference between this and other people having skimmers and powerheads and such blow poison into the air to affect the whole house. Also the ones that say, water got in my mouth, is hard to believe unless they were chopping up palys in the tank before hand.

Whatever the case is be reefers should be careful, not paranoid.

Palytoxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known. It takes extremely small amounts to cause symptoms. Though it might not 'kill the person' So its easy to understand how (depending on the size of the house, the ventilation, etc) that even a skimmer could cause problems. But each house would be different. Each person responds differently to the toxin (some people may not be as sensitive). Even when they do mouse experiments with this - its not like every mouse dies at the same level of poison (even though each mouse is genetically identical)

I would NOT think its prudent to use 'kalk' to kill zoas in the tank. That Will release toxin. As to symptoms - they do vary quite a bit depending on the route of exposure and the dose. With inhalation - its more breathing - with eating - its not.

I also didn't know anything about this and I touched them in the tank numerous times while moving rocks around - So either the ones I had were not the 'bad type' or I was also 'lucky'. I had the fluorescent green variety that everyone says is 'high risk' so I got rid of them by taking the rock out and dunking it in a gallon of bleach (outside). Because bleach inactivates the toxin.

Interesting - this toxin is also found in fish, sponges, algae crabs, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palytoxin

 

[MnFish1]

I've had pretty severe palytoxin poisoning before. Bc my 180g DT is 95% palys and zoas

I'm not sure the event causes of your house illnesses but one paly polyp in a powerhead being cleaned shouldn't effect anyone unless you stood over the powerhead breathing everything in. But every situation is different. So NOT doubting your story

Im a stupid stupid man, who scrubbed over 200-300 palys from LRs with a toothbrush with my bare arms in the tank. All bc i didnt want green palys anymore.

I NOW DESTROY UNWANTED PALYS IN-TANK BY COVERING COATING THEM WITH A HOMEMADE KALK PASTE. THE 40+dKH PASTE CHEMICALLY BURNS THEM OVER 48HRS

My symptoms:
* rapid heartbeat
* throat and chest CLOSED up making it feel like breathing thru a straw
* extreme tiredness
* headache

Symptoms lasted 4-5 days but symptoms got better each day. NEVER felt like I was gonna die, just sick. I've had much worse bouts of the Flu

Idk what to tell you if s single polyp being ground thru a powerhead would make an entire household sick. During my toothbrush scrubbing episode NO ONE in my house was effect at all but myself....

Palytoxin is like working a chainsaw. You must deeply respect both. But people totally flipping out bc they touched a paly colony is phobic to me. But each his own

I frag palys all the time gloveless bc I need the dexterity to frag. I know to avoid the polyp squirting juice in my face. And to minimize touching the slimecoat

Where palys get dangerous is when they are scrubbed or any activity where they a slimeup with a release of defense toxins.

But palys in your tank, undisturbed are beautiful to watch grow and are safe to keep. I would say you're a 1,000,000 times more likely to die in a house fire than die keeping palys

.

The problem is that not all Zoas have palytoxin - and there is no way to know which ones do and which ones dont until you get sick. The High PH Kalk you're using may also inactivate the toxin - but - there are numerous reports of people killing palys in their tanks and have all of their fish die as well. Again - if the Zoas you're killing don't have the toxin - either way its not going to cause a problem.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Palytoxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known. It takes extremely small amounts to cause symptoms. Though it might not 'kill the person' So its easy to understand how (depending on the size of the house, the ventilation, etc) that even a skimmer could cause problems. But each house would be different. Each person responds differently to the toxin (some people may not be as sensitive). Even when they do mouse experiments with this - its not like every mouse dies at the same level of poison (even though each mouse is genetically identical)

I would NOT think its prudent to use 'kalk' to kill zoas in the tank. That Will release toxin. As to symptoms - they do vary quite a bit depending on the route of exposure and the dose. With inhalation - its more breathing - with eating - its not.

I also didn't know anything about this and I touched them in the tank numerous times while moving rocks around - So either the ones I had were not the 'bad type' or I was also 'lucky'. I had the fluorescent green variety that everyone says is 'high risk' so I got rid of them by taking the rock out and dunking it in a gallon of bleach (outside). Because bleach inactivates the toxin.

Interesting - this toxin is also found in fish, sponges, algae crabs, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palytoxin

What mouse experiments are you referring to?
I was just pointing out how odd the variety of reactions are. I have seen a lot of posts about people being poisoned and the ones that were less severe all had different symptoms. The ones that were more severe all had trouble breathing and horrible lasting issues. I would guess some of the less severe ones could be called a panic attack.

 

[MnFish1]

What mouse experiments are you referring to?
I was just pointing out how odd the variety of reactions are. I have seen a lot of posts about people being poisoned and the ones that were less severe all had different symptoms. The ones that were more severe all had trouble breathing and horrible lasting issues. I would guess some of the less severe ones could be called a panic attack.

The 'mouse experiments' (or animal experiments) that determine the LD50 for any 'toxin'. Not every animal dies at the same dose. I mean - it is common sense that if you get a minuscule dose you may have minimal or no symptoms. If you inhale boiled palytoxin - you may be in more trouble. Not sure why you're saying what you're saying - if you read the reports - even the wikipedia article I posted as a starting point - it says that depending on the route of exposure that the symptoms vary. No offense at all - it seems like you are saying since you had a certain experience that that means everyone should have that experience (i.e. you had one severe reaction - and multiple times with no reaction) - There are many reasons for that experience - and its good that you didn't have bad experiences the other times you were less than careful with Zoas.

 

[T Carey]

To add just a little more to this thread. Most sinks have a bubbler on the end of the faucet. This has the effect of aerosolizing whatever it is rinsing. That is why the CDC recommends not washing off a chicken before cutting. The bursting bubbles can carry the bacteria from the chicken skin into the air and move it all over the kitchen.

It could easily do the same with palytoxin when rinsing a rock etc.

 

[pdisner]

I find the most toxic palys are not that attractive. I do like the look of the grandis palys. I believe those are high in toxicity. Still, I am sure the larger size makes them easier to frag. Anyone have experience with fragging the grandis palys?

What do they look like? Do you have some? I have these dark green palys now. They can grow some really long tentacles!sorry no pic yet. I’ll try and get one.

 

[CenlaReefer]

What do they look like? Do you have some? I have these dark green palys now. They can grow some really long tentacles!sorry no pic yet. I’ll try and get one.

No, I do not have any of those. I already have too much green in my to displayed thanks. Here’s a link for one for sale:

https://www.tidalgardens.com/stock-palythoa-grandis.html