palytoxin symptoms

[fishytime]

yes but Danniella, your basically telling people that because you handle and frag your zoas all the time, so the problem(or potential for a problem) doesnt exist.....and this is irresponsible advice.....I feel that it is better to broad spectrum warm people about the potential for palytoxin poisoning and let them decide how they wanna handle their zoas and palys.....there have been plenty of cases of people getting sick from handling their palys.....now what would have happened if any of these people had an open cut on their hands???......I have been trying to find the thread where a gentleman's dog died after he was fragging palys, but I havnt been able to find it.....and I disagree with your claim that there are worse things then palytoxin in out aquariums.....palytoxin is the second most toxic naturally occurring substance known to man.....I dont think you can get much worse than that, in our aquariums.....(save maybe a blue-ringed octopus)

[fencer]

Doug give up....this person is determined on her opinion right or wrong and it is obvious she has the proof too say otherwise...this is not a topic that is debatable. Paly toxin exists. Because it is in the home reef system there is plenty of potential of getting poisoned by it. I don't have a lot of education but hypersensitivity to paly toxin comes with time. One day your immune system goes in to overdrive and you get nuked. In my case the incidents of asthma and body chills occurred within minutes of working close to paly colonies. Clearly an immuogenic response. In this case I was using tweezers to remove some algae off the paly rock. There must have been enough toxin to dispersed into the air to affect me.( the tank was half empty to expose the area I wanted to clean). What the hey, I am stupid enough to get poisoned by Palys twice, who knows I far I can take it.Like I said don't have a lot of smarts so I rely on people's anecdotal nonscientific, non government funded stories about this hobby. Remember DRINK and DRIVE ALWAYS...it is the only way to increase your chances of early expiration. Oh yeah...2-4D is absolutely safe to use never had a problem until I got into my 3rd eye.

[ALang]

^^well said, Fencer.

[blaster]

These articles will bump the cost of buying them.

[hillegom]

Originally Posted by blaster

These articles will bump the cost of buying them.

Goodie!! I have some

[reef-keeper]

A newbie Like me and others specially with small children that when cleaning their tank that just a puff of toxin can seriously harm their 4 or 5year old that always wants to help daddy or mommy with the tank duties. I am glad that I read that article. As for the price they may drop to nothing because no one in their right mind with the helpful child would want them in the tank. That is just my opinion.

[wickedfrags]

How?

And everything is toxic - it really just depends on the dose.

Originally Posted by blaster

These articles will bump the cost of buying them.

[daniella3d]

I am not saying that it does not exist, but that it is something rare, that's all. I am also trying to find any credible reference, names etc..of people who actualy died from it without any luck.

Why would we go eating this stuff? or any other coral in our aquarium that can be toxic? I mean...boiling liverock and breathing the water from it is probably enough (without paly on it) to make some people going into an allergic reaction.

I often work with paly and zoanthids with cuts and wounds on my fingers and never had a problem. I must be pretty lucky since I have been doing this for 2 years now.

What I meat is that there are MUCH higher risk in our aquariums than being poisoned by palytoxine. The vibrio bacterias can probably make you a lot more sick than handling zoanthids. According to the Coral magasine article, no palytoxin were ever found in zoanthids, only in some species of palythoas and propalythoas if I remember well.

Geeezzz..I know a lot of people whom like me are handling zoanthids and paly all the time without even a trace of side effects. Are we so lucky? I think there is a lot of hypocondriac people spreading fear about this.

I read the story of the poisoned dog before, not sure if it is true or not but the dog drank the water full of slime. A lot of thing can kill a dog if consumed...a lot of things can kill a human if consumed. It is plain good old common sense NOT to eat stuff that can be poison. Handling it is another story.

When an article refer to human "deaths" and I cannot even find one credible occurence of it, sorry but I am very skeptical about the whole thing.

Originally Posted by fishytime

yes but Danniella, your basically telling people that because you handle and frag your zoas all the time, so the problem(or potential for a problem) doesnt exist.....and this is irresponsible advice.....I feel that it is better to broad spectrum warm people about the potential for palytoxin poisoning and let them decide how they wanna handle their zoas and palys.....there have been plenty of cases of people getting sick from handling their palys.....now what would have happened if any of these people had an open cut on their hands???......I have been trying to find the thread where a gentleman's dog died after he was fragging palys, but I havnt been able to find it.....and I disagree with your claim that there are worse things then palytoxin in out aquariums.....palytoxin is the second most toxic naturally occurring substance known to man.....I dont think you can get much worse than that, in our aquariums.....(save maybe a blue-ringed octopus)

[Madreefer]

Give it up Daniella. Another debate that you started and have lost again. We all heard your opinion and the majority disagree with it. Just move on, if you want to keep doing what you are without any precautions than fly at it. This is a great thread and if it will prevent any fellow reefers from getting sick or death than thats a good thing. Now you want names? Wow.

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

According to the Coral magasine article, no palytoxin were ever found in zoanthids, only in some species of palythoas and propalythoas if I remember well.

"All species of Palythoa, and most related zoanthids including Protopalythoa species, produce a chemical called palytoxin in their mucus and gonads." p182 Aquarium Corals Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History by Eric H. Borneman 2004

What did they say exactly? Because what you are saying contradicts Calfo, Borneman, Shimek, Delbeek and Sprung.

EDIT: You're failing to use correct identification which makes your argument sound ridiculous. Zoanthidae is the Family that contains the Genera Zoanthus, Palythoa etc. So Palythoa ARE Zoanthids.