Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - Marine aquarium cautions

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Stung by a hammer?

I have always handled my euphyllia Bare handed and have never had a side effect of any type, nor have i ever heard of anyone else being stung. is it possible that maybe this person might just be sensitive. or allergic like someone could be to a bee sting? not doubting, just surprised to Hear . i do agree about gloves as precaution. who knows what you might find. i just bought some aqua gloves cause I See so many unknown things on my rocks.

Thats what makes me cautious. crazy unknown, unseen and potential for sickness. i am active in my tank and have not always been crazy about hand washing... but its true that some stuff can get you. one thing i would like to point out,in regards To the hobby, is test chemicals. that is some bad ass stuff. if you dont wear gloves while handling these you could have serious long term effects. those pretty symbols on the bottle are there by LAW. ever wonder why? wear gloves. that covers all!

i seem to have high tolerance to stings so i dont wear gloves. puffer fish nip at your hands when cleaning made my finger go numb.scats have venomous spines as i found out after a hit to the arm. and lest but not least.HUMANS CAN CONTRACT DISEASE FROM FISH!! i found out the hard way years ago in Vancouver i worked in a pet store.the doctors couldn't fig out what it was.looked like a cyst on my index finger and slowly crawled up my hand more and more.finally a biopsy revealed fish tank granuola .treatable with tetracycline.apparently common in Florida on workers producing live rock ect. it happens if u have a cut and submerse it in the fish tank.i treated a yellow tang and think he gave it to me.lol.doctors had all their buddys in the room staring and taking pics of my hand.good times:razz:

Quote:

Originally Posted by debbaDEEra (Post 370334)

I knew that some corals are toxic but I had NO idea that zoos were this toxic. I have never worn gloves and was not told I should by any other the LFS. I do and have had swollen glands on one side of my neck that the doctors are watching and the next step is more tests. Could this be from me handling EVERYTHING in my tank wo gloves? I did months of research before we got the tank but I guess I missed this tutorial!!

Wow....i better do some more research before i get my tank...ive been snorkling all over and did not know that coral could make me sick....stings and stuff like from a lionfish i understand,but i sure dont want anything in my house that can make me sick enough to see a doctor:surprise:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scythanith (Post 377640)

Do you know of any scientific evidence to support this?

all I know about the peeing on your hand thing is that it`s true. I know a friend who got stung by a sting ray in L.A. and then got rushed to the emerg. cause he almost died... the doctors said that if he had urinated on the sting, it would have slowed down and helped neutralize the sting. I guess the bile in your pee fights the poisons

I can remember when ever I swap out a tank, I get a stuffy nose and congested from it. a little bit of UFI For everybody's info that u can drink your urine up to 7 times before your body will reject it. it becomes poison then.

MMMMmmm recycled beer :)

In the Coral magasine, they mention that to this date there has not been any palytoxin found in zoanthids. So far there is no proof that zoanthids or even what we have in our aquarium that we call paly actualy have the toxine.

I frag my zoa and paly all the time without glove, even have scratches and wounds sometime and I never been sick from a bit of zoa mucus. Wearing eye glasses is important though because they can spit in the eyes and I read that this is not pleasant...although not deadly!

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishytime (Post 369842)

Working at a lfs I am amazed at how many people are surprised to learn about some of the things that could make you at the very least sick (and worse:surprise:) that we keep in our little eco-systems. Im hoping perhaps this thread could become a sticky and be used as a guide for new (and possibly old) hobbyists. People need to be aware of some of the hazards the we commonly keep.

I thought maybe other canreefers could add to the thread if they had a picture of the fish,invert, etc and provide a link to the pertinent information. In thinking about the list of potential "baddies", I realized I have only one thing in my tank at the moment that could "get" me. Not really comforting considering the one thing I have is probably the only thing that could potentially prove to be fatal.

Zoanthids.

A coral touted as being a good choice for beginners and both easy to keep and frag. While all this is true zoanthids contain a deadly substance called palytoxin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palytoxin. Extreme caution should be used when handling your zoas.

-wear gloves
-if you cant wear gloves wash your hands thoroughly after
-do not handle your zoas without gloves if you have an open cut on your hands.
-while fragging your zoas, wear eye protection.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMGP1390-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...1455_large.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by daniella3d (Post 528994)

About 2 years ago I read a report on RC where a guy's dog ate some zoanthus/palythora out of a bucket while he was doing some tank maintenance then died. Maybe later when I have a little more time I can do some searching and find it again. He obviously wasn't a scientist doing research so it wasn't properly documented. But that was proof enough for me.

I remember reading that and I think it was some sort of brownish palythoas and the dog drank the water the polyps were fragged in, so it was probably a variety of palythoas that contained the toxine and there was probably a large amount of it. Is that true? not sure as a lot of things we read are just made up.

But zoanthids have never been proven to actualy contain the palytoxine. Palythoas maybe yes, but not the 3 varieties of zoanthids (even what we call paly are still zoanthids) that we use in aquarium.

Of course if you start eating your coral, you might get very sick from most of them. I never ever read or heard anytyhing about people getting sick from toutching zoanthids with their bare hands and I never felt anything from toutching and fragging them with my bare hands, even with cuts and wounds and scratches on my hands. I even once scratched my finger badly while removing zoanthids from totoka liverock and only after one hour of fragging I realized that I was bleeding from that scratch yet no metallic taste in my mouth, no dizinnes, no nosea etc..

I am not saying it cannot happen but we should not be histerical either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo (Post 529023)