A warning about toxicity. A MUST read.

but yea it is dangerous stuff.... before i didn't know what it was. and i poke it with my finger playing with it... and a few minutes later i went to bed.. as i was laying there i got really dizzy and wanted to puke and i was so tired i couldn't open my eyes.... then i woke up the next morning .. the paly toxin must of got in my system some how.. who knows..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11476139#post11476139 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahaitzmickey
but yea it is dangerous stuff.... before i didn't know what it was. and i poke it with my finger playing with it... and a few minutes later i went to bed.. as i was laying there i got really dizzy and wanted to puke and i was so tired i couldn't open my eyes.... then i woke up the next morning .. the paly toxin must of got in my system some how.. who knows..
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Here is what's scary!

911 is dialed. A man is in cardiac arrest. He is pronounced dead at the hospital. Coroner says its a heart attack. Weeks later a widow is posting a reef tank for sale.

Imagine how many times this may have happen......

and the real killer sits silently in hubby's tank!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11480384#post11480384 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitoTee
Here is what's scary!

911 is dialed. A man is in cardiac arrest. He is pronounced dead at the hospital. Coroner says its a heart attack. Weeks later a widow is posting a reef tank for sale.

Imagine how many times this may have happen......

and the real killer sits silently in hubby's tank!
Click to expand...

Orrrrrrrrr, maybe he just had a regular old cardiac arrest and also happened to have an aquarium. Both are common enough that you would expect that to happen and it not necessarily have anything to do with the tank.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11483229#post11483229 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Wolverine
Orrrrrrrrr, maybe he just had a regular old cardiac arrest and also happened to have an aquarium. Both are common enough that you would expect that to happen and it not necessarily have anything to do with the tank.
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I agree. However, the point I'm trying to make is that there is a posibility of this sort of thing happening more than we may realize and there would be no collection of data since .....well......

how many coroners are going to be checking for Palytoxin as cause of death without any justifiable cause to search for it?
 
Based on most of these experiences I would think that they are more along the lines of allergic reactions than Paly poisining.
 
Based on most of these experiences I would think that they are more along the lines of allergic reactions than Paly poisining.
 
i think this can also be some sort of mild alergic reaction. i had a similar situation.. my husband constantly puts his hands in our tank to move things around... he was asleep one night and i moved my rock of zoos from my 90 g to my 24 nano afterwards i washed my hands a couple times becasue of the smell and went to bed..
while i was laying in bed my left leg started feeling funny i reached down to feel it and it was numb.. i thought i might have pinched a nerve.. when i went to sit up i felt dizzy and sluggish. I stood up and woke my husband and my chest started feeling tight almost like it was hard to breath. i didnt even put the 2 together until about 1/2 hr later .. it took a couple hours for me to be able to fall asleep but i still felt the same way.. the next morning i was fine.


i have read information on zoas and never really took it seriously considering i know alot of ppl in the hobby and never heard them say anything about it.

i believe it now...
just because it hasnt happened to you doesnt mean that ppl who say it happened are crazy.

I dont think it would have killed me but if i ate them it just might.

maybe its an allergic reaction or maybe not.
 
its always a good idea to be safer then sorry.... maybe someone out there is extremely allergic to this ... dont take the chance.
 
Yea safe than sorry. The only thing its hard for me to wear gloves is that my hands are too small. I can't get the right feeling when I frag or handle corals. So I have bare with what ever I get.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12240141#post12240141 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitoTee
Based on most of these experiences I would think that they are more along the lines of allergic reactions than Paly poisining.
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I am not sure that palytoxin could be immunogenic from it's structure - in solution it looks like it would be too floppy and also I am not sure it has anything that has a descript enough 3d structure for an antibody to recognize any one part of it, so unless an antibody can bind, you aren't going to get any kind of immune response. Generally immune responses tend to be triggered by proteins which are much more structurally complex and have 3d structure, which this does not.

Not impossible that this would cause an allergic reaction, but it makes a crumby antigen. Unless of course you mean they are having an allergic reaction to something else, which is entirely possible.

As for palytoxin being lethal, yeah this stuff destroys the membrane potential of any cell it comes in contact with... that is more than sufficient to kill just about anything.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12539298#post12539298 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spamin76
I am not sure that palytoxin could be immunogenic from it's structure - in solution it looks like it would be too floppy and also I am not sure it has anything that has a descript enough 3d structure for an antibody to recognize any one part of it,
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ANYTHING has the potential to be allergenic/immunogenic. Even if you have a relatively unstable structure, the body only has to find one small portion of that to react to. Sometimes just a small string of amino acids can be enough to do it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=1398120#post1398120 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by intheband
corals found in the aquarium trade DO NOT contain palytoxin..and its not in zoanthus at all-but rather in palythoa-and only a few species(once again-not available in the trade)contain it...

zooanthids are perfectly harmless-all the hype about this is getting pretty rediculous:rolleyes:

can anyone refute what im saying at all??-and produce the data to back it up?ill gladly eat my words if you can( and maybe even be more careful in the future)..but if you cant-all youre doing is feeding a senseless paranoia..
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I'm going to have to agree with intheband on this one and here is why:

1) I have touched, cut, ripped and brushed up against zoas w/out any reactions and I have a few different species. I have heard from multiple sources that only certain zoas contain the palytoxin.

2) How do you know that these reactions from people or animals are not an allergic reaction? I can eat peanut butter but if somebody who has a bad peanut allergy smells it, they can die right?

3) I have done much searching and nobody had hard evidence, no death certificates signed: death by coral poisoning from palytoxin.

4) Wikipedia isn't a reliable source but it says two things, palytoxin is poisonous but you pretty much have to eat a significant amount of zoa's to feel the ill effects or rub it into a fresh cut.

5) I've experienced more skin reactions and have heard from others too when handling live rock and remember it's dumb to stick any open sore into a saltwater tank let alone any fish tank. It's loaded with bacteria which who knows can cause what harm.

6) Wash your hands after messing with your tank/corals, etc. Basic Hygene, durr.

7) Don't eat your corals and you won't have a problem, if you can't watch your dog and stop him from eating corals you should have a dog or the dog is dumb.

8) Palytoxin is considered to be "ONE" of the most toxic non-peptide substances know.

There is a lot of bunk hype on this subject but the majority of it is hear say.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10832117#post10832117 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dufus
From what i have gathereed on all this, the Zooanthids aren't toxic.

It's the Palythoas that are deadly, and not all of them at that.

Button polyps are the dangerous ones, again, not all of them.

and, the toxin would have to be introduced in larger amounts than just a small open cut on your hand being in the very diluted palytoxin in the aquarium.

now, i could see if the man was fragging his polyps and there was a fair amount of palytoxin released that the dog ingested.
the first place, but am obsessed with zooanthids.

Know what you're buying, and know what's dangerous.
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I forgot to say that too, I'm reading backwards and I heard that too, it's certain palythoas. I was worried at first a week or two back when i squashed a palythoa on accident with my bare fingers and I'm still alive.
 
Wow 15 pages and no clear answer.

I have several Zoa colonies and have fragged all of them without incident. That being said, I will be a little more cautious when handling them.
 
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