CAUTION:
Keep in mind that like all species within the genuses Palythoa, Protopalythoa, Zoanthus, and similar polyp corals contain at least minute traces of the toxin Palytoxin. This highly potent toxin has a very low LD-50 value ("Lethal Dose 50": in other words, it doesn't take much of this poison to kill 50% of a mouse population after ingestion). This poison can enter the body through your mouth, nose, eyes, sinus cavities (and probably ears), cuts, scrapes, et cetera. Read more about palytoxin. The species found in your tank is unlikely to contain the high doses which people have to fear, but it's truly better to be safe then sorry with this coral. You have been warned and I am not responsible for what you do, damages to your livestock or property, etc.
I don't mean to scare you away from these beautiful corals. In my opionion, palythoas are, hands down, the easiest coral to care for. I have pathetic power compacts (50/50, 105 watts over 25 gallons) and in less then two months, the colony of 7 polyps has more than doubled to 18.
There are several species of palythoa. The largest, Palythoa grandis, has heads which grow to the size of a silver dollar! The average palythoa grows to be about quarter-size. While they vary in size, care really the same.
Palythoa General Care
These coral need general reef conditions:
Salinity: 1.024-1.026
pH: 8.1-8.4
Temp: 77-82 F
Lighting: Contain zooxanthellae so they need at least very low lighting (PC's) but will thrive and morph under VHO's and metal halides
Flow: Any, but they seem to spread faster under moderate-high flow.
Placement: Anywhere. They don't contain sweeper tentacles as in many LPS, but I still wouldn't keep them too close to other corals.
Feeding: I feed a few polyps out of the colony, as a whole, twice a week. Every polyp is thereby fed at least once a week.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614013893/in/photostream
^ That pipette contains pieces of cut up table shrimp, squid, octopus, mysis, thawed brine shrimp, and flounder. Squirt a small (pinhead size) piece of meat into the tentacles. It's advisable to turn off pumps 5 minutes before feeding (don't forget to turn them back on!).
Like all cnidaria (jellyfish, anemones, mushroom corals, SPS, LPS, soft corals, and our friendly polyps), palythoas contain a primitive nerve net. It can sense minute vibrations in the water as well as anything that touches it. It will attempt to close and consume anything that touches it, however its tentacles are not "sticky" with nematocysts (stinging cells unique to cnidarians) as in anemones. Once food touches its tentacles, it will close in upon itself and consume it. Shrimp can and will bury their claws into a closed polyp to retrieve food, so placing a cover (such as a the top cone of a water bottle) over the polyps may be helpful.
Palythoas grow remarkably fast, but there are several ways of propagation for the impatient, like yours truly.
Fragging Palythoas
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614024757/in/photostream
You will need: A towel to lay out; tupperware nobody will miss (you'll be placing toxic corals in it, remember?); a pair of sharp scissors; a few rubberbands; mesh which clementines or onions come in; hemostats or tweezers for gently holding your cut heads; clean rock (this one has been in my overflow for a while); and for God's sake, GLOVES. Goggles are recommended too (I was wearing glasses), the poison can blind you.
Oh. You'll probably need some palythoas to cut.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614022897/in/photostream
That is my colony with about 16 or 17 heads, interchangeably called polyps. If the top circular part of the animal is cut, the stalk will regrow a new head and, if the top circular part is smushed up next to a rock, it will attach to said rock and grow a new stalk. Pretty neat, huh?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614020731/in/photostream
Wear gloves. Really. Send your kids upstairs, put the dog in the backyard, and don't have distractions. I read a report where a dog which smelled and possibly drank some water where palythoas were fragged died roughly 6 hours after the ordeal. Be smart about fragging these. Moving on...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614018701/in/photostream
Fill the tupperware with a few inches of water. Wave your hand over the polyps to close them up, and slowly pull them from the water. Place them in this tupperware. It's imperative that the water they go into is the same water from their tank. We want to minimize stress, as we're about to cut some to pieces.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614029579/in/photostream
Take your scissors and cut halfway down the stalk of a closed polyp, preferably a larger one. This is where goggles come into handy. When you cut them, they will often squirt water laden with palytoxin. At the very least, this will sting your eyes. At the worst, it will cause permanent damage, possibly blindness. At least wear glasses!
Within a few days, the original stalks will lump up. Within a week or two, you will see tentacles and after another week, you will probably be able to resume feeding them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614027223/in/photostream
In this case, I cut the heads off of two polyps. Dry off the clean rock a little bit and place them onto the rock.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014787/in/photostream
My mesh had larger holes where the polyps may have simply slipped out. So, I cut two lengths of mesh and laid one over the other.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014671/in/photostream
Work carefully here. I was taking pictures, so I wasn't wearing gloves on both hands. Tsk tsk tsk...
From here, cut each rubber band once so you basically have two lengths of rubber bands.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014621/in/photostream
Put the original colony back into the water. After palythoas are cut, they slime up; this slime contains palytoxin. This water should be discarded after the fragging process. The small brittle star to the left crawled out as I was cutting. Interesting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014563/in/photostream
Adjust the mesh to fit well and tightly over the palythoas. Thread one of the rubber bands through both layers of mesh on one side and then the other. Tie one....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014469/in/photostream
And tie two! Make these tight. It's always a shame to go through all of this work just to see your mesh the next morning with no coral heads under it :sad2:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014271/in/photostream
Le product! Almost done...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014155/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014059/in/photostream
Put your newly fragged palythoas into the water as the heads will ooze too. I had to prop up one side of the tupperware under a towel so the rock would be covered.
Place your rocks in the water. Give the mesh-rock higher flow and slightly higher light (my mesh was wide, so it blocked flow, possibly allowing the heads to rot, and the mesh also blocks some light).
Discard the tupperware water. Clean your scissors. Don't take your gloves off, not quite yet.
Now here's the nice (?) thing about palytoxin. It is completely water-soluble. So throw your towels into the wash; clean your metal tools and tupperware well. (I still personally wouldn't store food in the tupperware, just to be safe.)
Once everything is cleaned, you can take off your gloves. I wouldn't reuse them, unless if they're the heavy-duty kind.
You can expect to remove the mesh from the rock in 2-3 weeks, or whenever you can see that the palythoa heads have firmly attached to the rock.
You can expect the stalks remaining on the original rock to regrow tentacles within two weeks, be feeding after the third week, and growing to nearly the same size as the original after about a month.
So that's that. Palythoas are ridiculously easy. If an idiot like myself can do it, I'm certain that you can. Exercise caution with palytoxin, but know that the polyp species in your tank is unlikely to contain the high doses common to Hawaiian mythology. Give palythoas a try, and maybe a cut or two. Mesh them to a rock and see what happens.
Happy reefing
Keep in mind that like all species within the genuses Palythoa, Protopalythoa, Zoanthus, and similar polyp corals contain at least minute traces of the toxin Palytoxin. This highly potent toxin has a very low LD-50 value ("Lethal Dose 50": in other words, it doesn't take much of this poison to kill 50% of a mouse population after ingestion). This poison can enter the body through your mouth, nose, eyes, sinus cavities (and probably ears), cuts, scrapes, et cetera. Read more about palytoxin. The species found in your tank is unlikely to contain the high doses which people have to fear, but it's truly better to be safe then sorry with this coral. You have been warned and I am not responsible for what you do, damages to your livestock or property, etc.
I don't mean to scare you away from these beautiful corals. In my opionion, palythoas are, hands down, the easiest coral to care for. I have pathetic power compacts (50/50, 105 watts over 25 gallons) and in less then two months, the colony of 7 polyps has more than doubled to 18.
There are several species of palythoa. The largest, Palythoa grandis, has heads which grow to the size of a silver dollar! The average palythoa grows to be about quarter-size. While they vary in size, care really the same.
Palythoa General Care
These coral need general reef conditions:
Salinity: 1.024-1.026
pH: 8.1-8.4
Temp: 77-82 F
Lighting: Contain zooxanthellae so they need at least very low lighting (PC's) but will thrive and morph under VHO's and metal halides
Flow: Any, but they seem to spread faster under moderate-high flow.
Placement: Anywhere. They don't contain sweeper tentacles as in many LPS, but I still wouldn't keep them too close to other corals.
Feeding: I feed a few polyps out of the colony, as a whole, twice a week. Every polyp is thereby fed at least once a week.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614013893/in/photostream
^ That pipette contains pieces of cut up table shrimp, squid, octopus, mysis, thawed brine shrimp, and flounder. Squirt a small (pinhead size) piece of meat into the tentacles. It's advisable to turn off pumps 5 minutes before feeding (don't forget to turn them back on!).
Like all cnidaria (jellyfish, anemones, mushroom corals, SPS, LPS, soft corals, and our friendly polyps), palythoas contain a primitive nerve net. It can sense minute vibrations in the water as well as anything that touches it. It will attempt to close and consume anything that touches it, however its tentacles are not "sticky" with nematocysts (stinging cells unique to cnidarians) as in anemones. Once food touches its tentacles, it will close in upon itself and consume it. Shrimp can and will bury their claws into a closed polyp to retrieve food, so placing a cover (such as a the top cone of a water bottle) over the polyps may be helpful.
Palythoas grow remarkably fast, but there are several ways of propagation for the impatient, like yours truly.
Fragging Palythoas
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614024757/in/photostream
You will need: A towel to lay out; tupperware nobody will miss (you'll be placing toxic corals in it, remember?); a pair of sharp scissors; a few rubberbands; mesh which clementines or onions come in; hemostats or tweezers for gently holding your cut heads; clean rock (this one has been in my overflow for a while); and for God's sake, GLOVES. Goggles are recommended too (I was wearing glasses), the poison can blind you.
Oh. You'll probably need some palythoas to cut.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614022897/in/photostream
That is my colony with about 16 or 17 heads, interchangeably called polyps. If the top circular part of the animal is cut, the stalk will regrow a new head and, if the top circular part is smushed up next to a rock, it will attach to said rock and grow a new stalk. Pretty neat, huh?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614020731/in/photostream
Wear gloves. Really. Send your kids upstairs, put the dog in the backyard, and don't have distractions. I read a report where a dog which smelled and possibly drank some water where palythoas were fragged died roughly 6 hours after the ordeal. Be smart about fragging these. Moving on...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614018701/in/photostream
Fill the tupperware with a few inches of water. Wave your hand over the polyps to close them up, and slowly pull them from the water. Place them in this tupperware. It's imperative that the water they go into is the same water from their tank. We want to minimize stress, as we're about to cut some to pieces.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614029579/in/photostream
Take your scissors and cut halfway down the stalk of a closed polyp, preferably a larger one. This is where goggles come into handy. When you cut them, they will often squirt water laden with palytoxin. At the very least, this will sting your eyes. At the worst, it will cause permanent damage, possibly blindness. At least wear glasses!
Within a few days, the original stalks will lump up. Within a week or two, you will see tentacles and after another week, you will probably be able to resume feeding them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614027223/in/photostream
In this case, I cut the heads off of two polyps. Dry off the clean rock a little bit and place them onto the rock.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014787/in/photostream
My mesh had larger holes where the polyps may have simply slipped out. So, I cut two lengths of mesh and laid one over the other.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014671/in/photostream
Work carefully here. I was taking pictures, so I wasn't wearing gloves on both hands. Tsk tsk tsk...
From here, cut each rubber band once so you basically have two lengths of rubber bands.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014621/in/photostream
Put the original colony back into the water. After palythoas are cut, they slime up; this slime contains palytoxin. This water should be discarded after the fragging process. The small brittle star to the left crawled out as I was cutting. Interesting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014563/in/photostream
Adjust the mesh to fit well and tightly over the palythoas. Thread one of the rubber bands through both layers of mesh on one side and then the other. Tie one....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014469/in/photostream
And tie two! Make these tight. It's always a shame to go through all of this work just to see your mesh the next morning with no coral heads under it :sad2:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014271/in/photostream
Le product! Almost done...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014155/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73238639@N07/6614014059/in/photostream
Put your newly fragged palythoas into the water as the heads will ooze too. I had to prop up one side of the tupperware under a towel so the rock would be covered.
Place your rocks in the water. Give the mesh-rock higher flow and slightly higher light (my mesh was wide, so it blocked flow, possibly allowing the heads to rot, and the mesh also blocks some light).
Discard the tupperware water. Clean your scissors. Don't take your gloves off, not quite yet.
Now here's the nice (?) thing about palytoxin. It is completely water-soluble. So throw your towels into the wash; clean your metal tools and tupperware well. (I still personally wouldn't store food in the tupperware, just to be safe.)
Once everything is cleaned, you can take off your gloves. I wouldn't reuse them, unless if they're the heavy-duty kind.
You can expect to remove the mesh from the rock in 2-3 weeks, or whenever you can see that the palythoa heads have firmly attached to the rock.
You can expect the stalks remaining on the original rock to regrow tentacles within two weeks, be feeding after the third week, and growing to nearly the same size as the original after about a month.
So that's that. Palythoas are ridiculously easy. If an idiot like myself can do it, I'm certain that you can. Exercise caution with palytoxin, but know that the polyp species in your tank is unlikely to contain the high doses common to Hawaiian mythology. Give palythoas a try, and maybe a cut or two. Mesh them to a rock and see what happens.
Happy reefing
Last edited:
