NeverAgain
New member
Hi everyone,
I'll first start off by saying I am not a reefkeeper. I have been in the hobby for many years handling only freshwater species and plants.
Just recently, I began a tank for African Cichlids, a species I have never had before. I did research on rocks for their tank and decided I liked the live rock look the best. Apparently many Cichlid owners use these rocks so what the heck....I go for it.
I bought 22 lbs of dried live rock (I do not know the "saltwater terms so bear with me) There was a bunch of ocean debris on it. Some green debris that looked like freshwater plants, some type of "worm" ECT. For obvious reasons I felt it best to clean the rock before placing in freshwater.
My whole family was home during this time. My husband, my 4 children and my dog and cat. They are all in the vicinity.
I place the rock in sink with a plug and fill it with hottest water I can get. My husband and I instantly inhale what we can best describe as pure salt. Our throats swell a tad, we are coughing and even giggling at our noobiness "oh man who knew the rocks contained this much salt!" Silly me.
It overwhelmed my home in both taste and smell, so we decide to open the windows. I continue to scrub the rocks in the water with a toothbrush before placing them on a towel next to me.
Shortly after, my whole family goes to bed and stay up for a bit. Within an hour, my throat is really burning, my heart is pounding and I feel strange.
Then I hear my 2 year old coughing hard and he started wheezing in his sleep. Thats when i knew something was wrong since illnesses don't strike suddenly like that.
I Googled "scrubbing live rock in hot water", since thats when the symptoms began that I had attributed to salt.imagine my surprise when I realized what palytoxin was and that I had done everything you weren't supposed to do! I immediately called a friend who lives on the coast. He reaffirmed what I read and told me to get my family out of the house now and call Poison Control. Poison control told me to take my family to the ER.
That's a whole story in itself so I will shorten it and say what our personal experiences were. My bad symptoms kicked in about 4 hours later. High fever, tremors, low blood pressure, feeling like my arms are on fire and my cheeks as well. I went from freezing, I'm not talking flu freezing. Its like swimming in a frozen lake cold. Hours later I'm sweating profusely. My lungs hurt to breathe deeply. The worst of my symptoms lasted 12 hours max. A few days later and I still dont feel completely right but life is back to normal. Just last night my hand broke out in a burning rash up to my wrist and I occasionally get chills.
As for my family, they suffered same symptoms perhaps a bit more mild and they had extreme nausea which I didn't have. We all agree the symptoms vary and tended to take on 1 severe type at a time vs all at once like the flu.
Long story short we are okay. We got rid of the rock and I will never ever have a reef tank because of this experience. I'm not saying this to down you all, it was just a bit traumatizing. I felt the need to post my story because I feel there are many nooby people in hobby who do not realize what they can be messing with. I was one of them. I also want to reiterate that no experience was the same between the 6 of us. So the information out there that it happens immediately just isn't true in our case. Also, you can smell the aerosol (tasted and smelled like u licked salt). Please enjoy ur tanks but be mindful and extremely careful always and hopefully this can reach someone who needs to hear it.
Ps. Sorry for any typos. I'm on my smartphone Lol
I'll first start off by saying I am not a reefkeeper. I have been in the hobby for many years handling only freshwater species and plants.
Just recently, I began a tank for African Cichlids, a species I have never had before. I did research on rocks for their tank and decided I liked the live rock look the best. Apparently many Cichlid owners use these rocks so what the heck....I go for it.
I bought 22 lbs of dried live rock (I do not know the "saltwater terms so bear with me) There was a bunch of ocean debris on it. Some green debris that looked like freshwater plants, some type of "worm" ECT. For obvious reasons I felt it best to clean the rock before placing in freshwater.
My whole family was home during this time. My husband, my 4 children and my dog and cat. They are all in the vicinity.
I place the rock in sink with a plug and fill it with hottest water I can get. My husband and I instantly inhale what we can best describe as pure salt. Our throats swell a tad, we are coughing and even giggling at our noobiness "oh man who knew the rocks contained this much salt!" Silly me.
It overwhelmed my home in both taste and smell, so we decide to open the windows. I continue to scrub the rocks in the water with a toothbrush before placing them on a towel next to me.
Shortly after, my whole family goes to bed and stay up for a bit. Within an hour, my throat is really burning, my heart is pounding and I feel strange.
Then I hear my 2 year old coughing hard and he started wheezing in his sleep. Thats when i knew something was wrong since illnesses don't strike suddenly like that.
I Googled "scrubbing live rock in hot water", since thats when the symptoms began that I had attributed to salt.imagine my surprise when I realized what palytoxin was and that I had done everything you weren't supposed to do! I immediately called a friend who lives on the coast. He reaffirmed what I read and told me to get my family out of the house now and call Poison Control. Poison control told me to take my family to the ER.
That's a whole story in itself so I will shorten it and say what our personal experiences were. My bad symptoms kicked in about 4 hours later. High fever, tremors, low blood pressure, feeling like my arms are on fire and my cheeks as well. I went from freezing, I'm not talking flu freezing. Its like swimming in a frozen lake cold. Hours later I'm sweating profusely. My lungs hurt to breathe deeply. The worst of my symptoms lasted 12 hours max. A few days later and I still dont feel completely right but life is back to normal. Just last night my hand broke out in a burning rash up to my wrist and I occasionally get chills.
As for my family, they suffered same symptoms perhaps a bit more mild and they had extreme nausea which I didn't have. We all agree the symptoms vary and tended to take on 1 severe type at a time vs all at once like the flu.
Long story short we are okay. We got rid of the rock and I will never ever have a reef tank because of this experience. I'm not saying this to down you all, it was just a bit traumatizing. I felt the need to post my story because I feel there are many nooby people in hobby who do not realize what they can be messing with. I was one of them. I also want to reiterate that no experience was the same between the 6 of us. So the information out there that it happens immediately just isn't true in our case. Also, you can smell the aerosol (tasted and smelled like u licked salt). Please enjoy ur tanks but be mindful and extremely careful always and hopefully this can reach someone who needs to hear it.
Ps. Sorry for any typos. I'm on my smartphone Lol
