I think your overreacting to something that is seldom a problem as long as you don't do stupid things like boil or scrape them. Your kids are a thousand times more at risk every time you put them in your car.
World's 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you!
- Thread starter revhtree
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Can't argue with doesn't feel right. [emoji6] saved my tail many times.
mattzang
2500 Club Member
so zoa folks, i have this live rock with a bunch of ugly hitchhiker zoas on it. i'd like them to be not there. i accidentally shanked one that was growing on the back wall while i was attempting to smash me some vermetid snails. nobody has died, myself included.. what would be the best way to get rid of these stupid things? i've seen people say they reach in and just tear them off the rock, but i've also seen people say they did that and woke up to a tank of dead fish the next day..
taking the rock out of the tank and launching it into my least favorite neighbor's yard seems like the best plan, but today's accidental fragging left me wondering if i could just slowly exterminate a couple everyday? thoughts and concerns are welcome!
taking the rock out of the tank and launching it into my least favorite neighbor's yard seems like the best plan, but today's accidental fragging left me wondering if i could just slowly exterminate a couple everyday? thoughts and concerns are welcome!
zoaplug
Community Member
Did they ever find out what zoanthids are most poisonous And what are not poisonous at allThis is an old article. I found it while researching something for a post. Just wanted to bring it back to life and discuss it!
World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you!
In 2007, a man from Woodbridge, Virginia was rushed into hospital after inhaling an aerosolised version of one of the deadliest poisons on the planet. He was not the victim of a terrorist attack. He wasn’t working in a biohazard laboratory. He was trying to clean out his fish tank.
The man, who posts on the Reef Central Forums as Steveoutlaw, was trying to get rid of a colony of zoanthids – a relative of corals and sea anemones – that was infesting his aquarium rocks. He had heard that boiling water would do the trick. When he tried it, he accidentally inhaled some of the steam.
Twenty minutes later, his nose was running and he had a cough. Four hours later, his breathing was laboured and he was headed to the emergency room. By the time he arrived, he was suffering from severe coughing fits and chest pains. He was stabilised, but he developed asthma and a persistent cough, and had to use steroids and an inhaler for at least two months.
The reason for his sudden illness was palytoxin, a speciality of zoanthids, and the second deadliest poison in the natural world. One gram of the stuff will kill more than a hundred million mice. This poison, liberated by the boiling water, had risen into Steveoutlaw’s airways in a cloud of steam.
Palytoxin is shrouded in legend. Hawaiian islanders tell of a cursed village in Maui, whose members defied a shark god that had been eating their fellow villagers. They dismembered and burned the god, before scattering his ashes in a tide pool near the town of Hana. Shortly after, a mysterious type of seaweed started growing in the pool. It became known as “limu-make-o-Hana†(deadly seaweed of Hana). If smeared on a spear’s point, it could instantly kill its victims.
The shark god may have been an elaborate fiction, but in 1961, Philip Helfrich and John Shupe actually found the legendary pool. Within it, they discovered a new species of zoanthid called Palythoa toxica. The limu-make-o-Hana was real, but it wasn’t seaweed – it was a type of colonial anemone. In 1971, Richard Moore and Paul Scheuer isolated the chemical responsible for the zoanthid’s lethal powers – palytoxin. Now, Jonathan Deeds from the US Food and Drug Administration has found that the poison is readily available in aquarium stores.
Deeds was investigating a case of palytoxin poisoning when he heard about Steveoutlaw’s unfortunate incident. He visited the man, collected a sample of the offending zoanthid, and found that it was indeed heavy with palytoxin. It wasn’t hard to get his hands on more. Deeds bought 15 more colonies from three aquarium stores in the Washington DC area, of the same species that gave Steveoutlaw his whiff of toxic steam. Three of the samples yielded even more poison. Every gram contained enough palytoxin to kill 300,000 mice, or around 80 people.
Unfortunately, Deeds has no clear message for aquarium owners. Some of the zoanthid species that he tested weren’t toxic at all, and indeed, many people claim to have handled zoanthids for years without problems. However, those that contain palytoxin can kill if even a small amount of the poison gets on the skin. And, as Steveoutlaw found, even breathing in an aerosolised version of the poison is a bad idea. The problem is that telling zoanthids apart is incredibly difficult – Deeds only did it with any degree of certainty using genetic analysis.
And tracing the origins of these animals isn’t easy either. One of the aquarium owners who Deeds visited said that he got his zoanthids through mixed containers of corals and rock fragments, known as “fragsâ€, with no information about their origins. The animals can be accidentally introduced on unsuspecting rocks. And many aquarium owners will break the rocks up themselves and exchange them between friends.
As Deeds wrote, “the legendary limu appears to be exacting its ancient curse once again, but this time upon unsuspecting marine home aquarists.†Owners are “often unaware of the deadly poisons they are being exposed toâ€.
PS Venom enthusiasts know that the potency of poisons is measured using the LD-50 – the dose that will kill half a group of mice after a set time. The most venomous snake has an LD-50 of 25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. For tetrodotoxin, the equivalent figure is 8 micrograms. For batrachotoxin, the poison from the skin of poison dart frogs, it’s 2-7 micrograms. For palytoxin, it’s 0.3 micrograms (or 300 nanograms).
Reference: Deeds, J., Handy, S., White, K., & Reimer, J. (2011). Palytoxin Found in Palythoa sp. Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Sold in the Home Aquarium Trade PLoS ONE, 6 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018235 Article Found Here
blasterman
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Yes.......I've posted links in other forums regarding confirmation of this and am looking for it, but if you look at the beginning of this thread you'll see the biggest offenders. To sum up the research Ive read, Palytoxin is otherwise not known to inhabit the more common 'boutique' zoas and palys we commonly trade, or is at a level not detectable. However, reef stores often stock the wild strain of palys for some stupid reason and sell them to nubs just starting out. Basically you want to avoid the pale, olive colored palys about the size of nickels or dimes. Again, no reefer I know of would propogate or trade them, but reef stores will sell them in big clusters.
Green implosions are harmless. Nuclear greens are harmless.
I can confirm with my own experience and other reefers these bad palys are capable of wiping out a tank of all corals and even suspended algaes in a matter of hours if they are triggered.
Green implosions are harmless. Nuclear greens are harmless.
I can confirm with my own experience and other reefers these bad palys are capable of wiping out a tank of all corals and even suspended algaes in a matter of hours if they are triggered.
A. grandis
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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 “but
reefs.com
The Dangers (and Myths) of Zoa Toxicity – Part 2
(Continued from Part 1) When it comes to toxic palys, it is the drab brown specimens that we see most often, but there may be at least some colorful phenotyp
reefs.com
It is imperative that we consider the facts as they are and to know there is a risk of toxicity in every zoanthid we can encounter in the hobby. Not only Palythoa spp., but also Zoanthus spp. The article posted previously and reposted above in this post doesn't tell us that it is 100% safe to handle all Zoanthus spp..
Zoanthus spp. COULD carry small amounts of palythoxin and the risk of harm by the toxin shouldn't be ignored. We should consider that an individual sensitive to palythoxin could die if a small amount (from a "weakly toxic" Zoanthus sansibaricus) make it's way to that individual.
IMHO Mr. Joe Rowlett made some crucial mistakes when writing his lines like:
"It is important to understand that palytoxin is not present in every species of “zoa”. I have heard many knowledgeable aquarists incorrectly state that all “zoanthids” contain it and are therefore dangerous, which is not accurate whatsoever. Such blanket statements show a lack of expertise in these corals and the extensive research recently published on them. One such study (Deeds et al 2011) focused on aquarium specimens and found that there is likely a single lineage of button polyps which is truly dangerous to the general aquarium community. This makes proper identification of the utmost importance, so lets jump into the esoterica of invertebrate taxonomy and attempt at last to correctly identify these deadly corals and their harmless relatives."
Sadly in the quote above alone we can see the mistakes in referring to the total lack of expertise when the author himself calls zoanthids "corals". He get's one isolated study to try to prove his claims on general safety of some zoanthids' species found in the hobby. So dangerously affirming that is likely "a single lineage of button polyps" to be "truly dangerous to the general aquarium community".
The whole article is not written in a scientific format, nor based in many important scientific papers, and should be read/interpreted with caution!
Let's keep that important fact in mind and avoid to spread a generalized message about this subject. Palythoxin is the second strongest toxin in the world. Lets be responsible and keep it safe, not sorry! We've already had way too many victims!
Peace!
A. grandis
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The so called "Nuclear Greens" strikes again!
This a brand new video posted today:
Let's please be very careful with publishing any "relief" article or message about palytoxin!
This a brand new video posted today:
Let's please be very careful with publishing any "relief" article or message about palytoxin!
Last edited:
My buddy who frags his massive colonies of designer zoos always gets flu like symptoms afterwards, i was skeptical of this until i was working with zoanthids all day at work recently without gloves on when i got super dizzy, nauseous, and felt short of breath, i also got the chills and just generally felt like crap, it really sucked because i was at work too.. the symptoms went away after i drank like a gallon of water but zoanthids are no joke the toxin with get into your body via skin contact for sure, I've learned my lesson, i will never handle zoanthids without gloves and eye protection on furthermore i will never keep the ugly big palythoas in my tank, if I'm gonna risk getting poisoned id rather have a pretty zoo rather than a poop brown one lol
A. grandis
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Thanks for your post. Would be great to see some pictures of the zoanthids you are referring to, if you don't mind.
Jay Z
Valuable Member
Pally toxin is gods little joke to us for trying to play god with our tanks.
Its a solid reminder that you never have full control over anything. Best you can do is proper prep and knowledge.
Its a solid reminder that you never have full control over anything. Best you can do is proper prep and knowledge.
Great advice. Gotta make sure you’re carefulThis is an old article. I found it while researching something for a post. Just wanted to bring it back to life and discuss it!
World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you!
In 2007, a man from Woodbridge, Virginia was rushed into hospital after inhaling an aerosolised version of one of the deadliest poisons on the planet. He was not the victim of a terrorist attack. He wasn’t working in a biohazard laboratory. He was trying to clean out his fish tank.
The man, who posts on the Reef Central Forums as Steveoutlaw, was trying to get rid of a colony of zoanthids – a relative of corals and sea anemones – that was infesting his aquarium rocks. He had heard that boiling water would do the trick. When he tried it, he accidentally inhaled some of the steam.
Twenty minutes later, his nose was running and he had a cough. Four hours later, his breathing was laboured and he was headed to the emergency room. By the time he arrived, he was suffering from severe coughing fits and chest pains. He was stabilised, but he developed asthma and a persistent cough, and had to use steroids and an inhaler for at least two months.
The reason for his sudden illness was palytoxin, a speciality of zoanthids, and the second deadliest poison in the natural world. One gram of the stuff will kill more than a hundred million mice. This poison, liberated by the boiling water, had risen into Steveoutlaw’s airways in a cloud of steam.
Palytoxin is shrouded in legend. Hawaiian islanders tell of a cursed village in Maui, whose members defied a shark god that had been eating their fellow villagers. They dismembered and burned the god, before scattering his ashes in a tide pool near the town of Hana. Shortly after, a mysterious type of seaweed started growing in the pool. It became known as “limu-make-o-Hana†(deadly seaweed of Hana). If smeared on a spear’s point, it could instantly kill its victims.
The shark god may have been an elaborate fiction, but in 1961, Philip Helfrich and John Shupe actually found the legendary pool. Within it, they discovered a new species of zoanthid called Palythoa toxica. The limu-make-o-Hana was real, but it wasn’t seaweed – it was a type of colonial anemone. In 1971, Richard Moore and Paul Scheuer isolated the chemical responsible for the zoanthid’s lethal powers – palytoxin. Now, Jonathan Deeds from the US Food and Drug Administration has found that the poison is readily available in aquarium stores.
Deeds was investigating a case of palytoxin poisoning when he heard about Steveoutlaw’s unfortunate incident. He visited the man, collected a sample of the offending zoanthid, and found that it was indeed heavy with palytoxin. It wasn’t hard to get his hands on more. Deeds bought 15 more colonies from three aquarium stores in the Washington DC area, of the same species that gave Steveoutlaw his whiff of toxic steam. Three of the samples yielded even more poison. Every gram contained enough palytoxin to kill 300,000 mice, or around 80 people.
Unfortunately, Deeds has no clear message for aquarium owners. Some of the zoanthid species that he tested weren’t toxic at all, and indeed, many people claim to have handled zoanthids for years without problems. However, those that contain palytoxin can kill if even a small amount of the poison gets on the skin. And, as Steveoutlaw found, even breathing in an aerosolised version of the poison is a bad idea. The problem is that telling zoanthids apart is incredibly difficult – Deeds only did it with any degree of certainty using genetic analysis.
And tracing the origins of these animals isn’t easy either. One of the aquarium owners who Deeds visited said that he got his zoanthids through mixed containers of corals and rock fragments, known as “fragsâ€, with no information about their origins. The animals can be accidentally introduced on unsuspecting rocks. And many aquarium owners will break the rocks up themselves and exchange them between friends.
As Deeds wrote, “the legendary limu appears to be exacting its ancient curse once again, but this time upon unsuspecting marine home aquarists.†Owners are “often unaware of the deadly poisons they are being exposed toâ€.
PS Venom enthusiasts know that the potency of poisons is measured using the LD-50 – the dose that will kill half a group of mice after a set time. The most venomous snake has an LD-50 of 25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. For tetrodotoxin, the equivalent figure is 8 micrograms. For batrachotoxin, the poison from the skin of poison dart frogs, it’s 2-7 micrograms. For palytoxin, it’s 0.3 micrograms (or 300 nanograms).
Reference: Deeds, J., Handy, S., White, K., & Reimer, J. (2011). Palytoxin Found in Palythoa sp. Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Sold in the Home Aquarium Trade PLoS ONE, 6 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018235 Article Found Here
youngreefer10g
Active Member
This is absolutely so insanely scary I'm 13 and I went to my lfs and the owner told me zoas were amazing and didn't warn me at all about the poisons I even told him I was planning on fragging them and he didn't say anything luckily when I got home I researched!This is an old article. I found it while researching something for a post. Just wanted to bring it back to life and discuss it!
World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you!
In 2007, a man from Woodbridge, Virginia was rushed into hospital after inhaling an aerosolised version of one of the deadliest poisons on the planet. He was not the victim of a terrorist attack. He wasn’t working in a biohazard laboratory. He was trying to clean out his fish tank.
The man, who posts on the Reef Central Forums as Steveoutlaw, was trying to get rid of a colony of zoanthids – a relative of corals and sea anemones – that was infesting his aquarium rocks. He had heard that boiling water would do the trick. When he tried it, he accidentally inhaled some of the steam.
Twenty minutes later, his nose was running and he had a cough. Four hours later, his breathing was laboured and he was headed to the emergency room. By the time he arrived, he was suffering from severe coughing fits and chest pains. He was stabilised, but he developed asthma and a persistent cough, and had to use steroids and an inhaler for at least two months.
The reason for his sudden illness was palytoxin, a speciality of zoanthids, and the second deadliest poison in the natural world. One gram of the stuff will kill more than a hundred million mice. This poison, liberated by the boiling water, had risen into Steveoutlaw’s airways in a cloud of steam.
Palytoxin is shrouded in legend. Hawaiian islanders tell of a cursed village in Maui, whose members defied a shark god that had been eating their fellow villagers. They dismembered and burned the god, before scattering his ashes in a tide pool near the town of Hana. Shortly after, a mysterious type of seaweed started growing in the pool. It became known as “limu-make-o-Hana†(deadly seaweed of Hana). If smeared on a spear’s point, it could instantly kill its victims.
The shark god may have been an elaborate fiction, but in 1961, Philip Helfrich and John Shupe actually found the legendary pool. Within it, they discovered a new species of zoanthid called Palythoa toxica. The limu-make-o-Hana was real, but it wasn’t seaweed – it was a type of colonial anemone. In 1971, Richard Moore and Paul Scheuer isolated the chemical responsible for the zoanthid’s lethal powers – palytoxin. Now, Jonathan Deeds from the US Food and Drug Administration has found that the poison is readily available in aquarium stores.
Deeds was investigating a case of palytoxin poisoning when he heard about Steveoutlaw’s unfortunate incident. He visited the man, collected a sample of the offending zoanthid, and found that it was indeed heavy with palytoxin. It wasn’t hard to get his hands on more. Deeds bought 15 more colonies from three aquarium stores in the Washington DC area, of the same species that gave Steveoutlaw his whiff of toxic steam. Three of the samples yielded even more poison. Every gram contained enough palytoxin to kill 300,000 mice, or around 80 people.
Unfortunately, Deeds has no clear message for aquarium owners. Some of the zoanthid species that he tested weren’t toxic at all, and indeed, many people claim to have handled zoanthids for years without problems. However, those that contain palytoxin can kill if even a small amount of the poison gets on the skin. And, as Steveoutlaw found, even breathing in an aerosolised version of the poison is a bad idea. The problem is that telling zoanthids apart is incredibly difficult – Deeds only did it with any degree of certainty using genetic analysis.
And tracing the origins of these animals isn’t easy either. One of the aquarium owners who Deeds visited said that he got his zoanthids through mixed containers of corals and rock fragments, known as “fragsâ€, with no information about their origins. The animals can be accidentally introduced on unsuspecting rocks. And many aquarium owners will break the rocks up themselves and exchange them between friends.
As Deeds wrote, “the legendary limu appears to be exacting its ancient curse once again, but this time upon unsuspecting marine home aquarists.†Owners are “often unaware of the deadly poisons they are being exposed toâ€.
PS Venom enthusiasts know that the potency of poisons is measured using the LD-50 – the dose that will kill half a group of mice after a set time. The most venomous snake has an LD-50 of 25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. For tetrodotoxin, the equivalent figure is 8 micrograms. For batrachotoxin, the poison from the skin of poison dart frogs, it’s 2-7 micrograms. For palytoxin, it’s 0.3 micrograms (or 300 nanograms).
Reference: Deeds, J., Handy, S., White, K., & Reimer, J. (2011). Palytoxin Found in Palythoa sp. Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Sold in the Home Aquarium Trade PLoS ONE, 6 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018235 Article Found Here
I do take precautions, wear eye protection and gloves when fragging but have to wonder how many have died from the 2nd deadliest poison? More I bet died from basic dishwasher pods. Not minimizing the risk as I do take it serious.
I traded in a few colonies a couple years ago for store credit. I decided to get out of this game, and the stress relief has been noticeable. I don't have to be super paranoid when working on my tank anymore. I suggest people who are in doubt to do the same. 
MohrReefs
Valuable Member
Fairly certain I've had a minor exposure to this before. Reached into my tank one day without my arm length glove on, had a cut on my finger. About an hour later my breathing was a bit uncomfortable, heart rate and blood pressure rose a bit. Just felt really off. Lasted a few hours.
I just pulled a large colony of rasta zoas off of a rock because they were growing on acros and killing them, a lot of them popped, and broke apart... wish me luck
Update: I'm all right, nothing happened. I was a bit concerned after because i had done everything wrong, i even siphoned water out with my mouth to do a water change after removing them.The only thing i did right was keeping it all underwater. So they wouldn't explode in my face.
Maybe the rasta zoas dont contain the toxins ;Happy
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