[chandigz]

While waiting for a buddy to come help move my tank I decided to finally rid some rock of the ugly brown palys that were taking over. I put on my gloves and glasses and proceeded to rip the little bastards off. I had a great idea. I would run the rock under really hot water to kill every last bit of tissue that was left. Little did I know that the palytoxin was becoming aerosolized and I was breathing it in. Within minutes I was developing a bad cough. We quickly moved the tank and my buddy left to go to work. By this time (1 hour later) my lungs were on fire and I was feeling really bad. I sat down on the couch and the next thing I new it was 12 hours later. I was sicker then I've ever been and completely delirious. I managed to crawl on my hands and knees, stopping and laying on the floor a few times to make it 12 feet over to my buckets of fish and tubs of coral and dump them into the tank. I then lost conciousness again and struggled in and out of conciousness, completely delirious, barely able to breath, with the most intense cold sweats, nausia, shakes, till the next day. At some point I made it to my bed. When I finally was able to function I knew by the smell of dead coral that I didn't want to look at my tank. Complete wipe out!!! Over $6000 in coral and livestock dead. Worst of all I poured 7 of the nicest croceas and maximas(these were like ultra plus) and 2 rhizo coral down the sink. Loosing these hurt the most as they were basicly irreplacable. I wanted to cry. I wanted to kill. I wanted to smash. I yelled and screammed at the top of my lungs even tho there was know one around to hear. Everyone experiences a crash at some point I told myself. But why me? Why now? Why not when I just started and why now when I was fully stocked? I had to keep telling myself to look at the positive side that at least I was alive and now there is a lot more real estate to put stuff or I probably would have completey lost it and smashed everything.