Could these kill us? Set Two. . . .
- Thread starter FireViper
- Start date
tjm9331
New member
I'm going to reply to just the one thread...
all the corals you posted are all basically harmless. The first pic in the first thread, I believe those are just harmless yellow polyps with some zoas all the rest are harmless to you.
The hammer coral does send out some sweepers looking for food and can/will sting other corals that are close to it with the exception of most other euphylias (hammer, frogspawn, torch corals)
all the corals you posted are all basically harmless. The first pic in the first thread, I believe those are just harmless yellow polyps with some zoas all the rest are harmless to you.
The hammer coral does send out some sweepers looking for food and can/will sting other corals that are close to it with the exception of most other euphylias (hammer, frogspawn, torch corals)
billdogg
Well-known member
^^^This x 1000^^^
I wouldn't suggest eating any of them, but you have nothing to worry about from just incidental contact with any of them. Wash hands before they go in to the tank and wash them again when you are finished.
As I stated in your very first post, I can see nothing at all that I would call a palythoa sp. You do have some zoanthids and yellow colonial polyps that have the ability to spread in the right conditions, but otherwise what I see is a good selection of some of the easier LPS corals.
Great. Thanks! After the replies to the first post, was kinda concerned about what we may have brought into the house. We asked for easy. Didn't think to ask for safe!
Tripod1404
Active member
You dont need to be allergic to palytoxin to get poisoned by it, and I am not sure if you can even be allergic to it as palytoxin is not a protein based compound. Its just toxic compound, if enough gets in your blood stream, it will stop your heart regardless of allergies or anything else.
The thing is, it is not easy to get it into blood. Palys do not excrete palytoxin and it is not a volatile compound that vaporizes easily. The only way of getting is by destroying a paly and releasing the palytoxin in their tissues, and then somehow getting exposed to it or worse boiling rocks that have palys on them and forcibly vaporization and inhaling it. It sure is a dangerous compound, but it is not something that, out of nothing, can kill you.
Dmorty217
Saltwater Addict
Learn something new everyday, guess I have been lucky in the past. I would never boil rock so that didn’t ever cross my mind and I’m sure that would wreak real havoc on the inhabitants of the house
Last edited:
Tripod1404
Active member
error
Tripod1404
Active member
I wouldn't worry to much about palys. Imo they are mostly safe unless the owner does something extreme like boiling a rocks with palys or tooth brushing a rock with palys without using gloves, etc.
I even doubt fraging them would be much of an issue. Although palytoxin is lipid soluble, and therefore would enter to the body trough the skin, I doubt lethal amounts of toxin can enter the body this way. Studies on mice indicate, for a 70kg human, ~500mgs of palytoxin needs to enter the body this way for it to be lethal. That is a ridiculously high amount, you probably need to frag many thousands of palys to even get close to that number. As a comparison, same person would only need to inhale 0.025mg of it to be lethal, so thats why boiling is very dangerous.
Yet, I would strongly encourage anyone who cuts one of these guys to use gloves, face masks and eye glasses.
sde1500
Active member
It's why I hate the phrase cooking rock so much. People literally have and the results can be real bad.
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