Hi All,
I'm fairly new to this hobby (just over a month in), I bought my tank used *turnkey*, or so I thought.
I paid a professional to help with the move of my tank, we all got sick for over a week (including my dogs). Fever, chills, body aches, headache... I would say it was the worst feelings i've encountered. Since I've owned the tank I havn't felt 100% always feeling a little sniffly and sore.
With the tank purhcase I received an abundance of brown/green palythoas. I liked them at first, but once my tank cycled they started to grow everywhere. I wanted to remove them slowly out of my tank. Aparently removing them is a pain (litteraly).
Last night I had taken a very small patch off of the rock, this came off very easy like a small carpet. My idea was to slowly remove this stuff and give it away. This morning I woke up to a few pieces of SPS completely bleached, a plate coral retracted and the fish not doing well. This frustrated me and they had to be removed. I slowly took every rock out one at a time and cut the pieces off, using gloves and a resperator (didn't want to take chances). This was around 7:30 AM, I then did a water change and removed the large offending rock all together.
At 10:00 ish it hit me, fever, chills, sore everywhere. By 1:00PM I was debaiting going to the hospital once again. Just now do I feel ok enough to type at a computer (currently dizzy and a temperature of 38+ degrees).
I guess the moral of the story is, the palys that I have CAN kill your tank and harm you/family/pets. I wore glasses/gloves and resperator and still got owned, along with loosing some SPS and possibly my fav plate coral
Be careful with these things, I believe they can produce airborn toxins that can hurt you. My wife is affeted as well, and she was only around the tank momentarily (not touching anything).
Attached is a picture of the now removed palythoa.