zoas and pioson

[RogueGrown]

I just started my first tank that is going to have corals in it. One of the corals Id really like to house, and made a place in my aquascape for was indeed with the idea of a small zoa garden. Now after reading the sticky about this toxic little guy, I find myself second guessing that very thought.

Is there any that are known to not be toxic?

It seemed to me the ones talking about being affected by these coral were coming in contact with them frequently and or were cleaning rock via hot water and scrubbing the rock, and while fragging the coral.

If it begins to grow too much and you need to cut it back how do people do this safely?

Does this coral spray or release its toxin when just removed from the water or does it need to be disturbed enough to want to spray?

Another thing I noticed was, while people are talking about PPE and prevention to being exposed, one of the things mentioned is to not leave contaminated water laying around in a bucket??? This makes zero sense to me. If the coral is mad and contaminates your tank do we perform a
100% WC?

 

[sde1500]

I tend to just be careful when I am handling the frags. No cuts on my hands if I am sticking my hand in the tank or holding zoa frags. And honestly I'm sure I have had open cuts before when working in the tank, just washed off very well after. Also making sure they don't squirt at me when holding them, but haven't seen that yet. I'm really not overly careful, been ok so far. I'm sure if I go to actually cut them up, I'll wear gloves and eye protection.

 

[whosurcaddie]

You will be fine. The stories you hear about are when people didn't take proper precaution with cuts and scrapes, and then handled palys or zoas leading to a reaction. I handle them all the time without gloves and have never been poisoned. If it makes you feel better just buy a box of latex gloves and use them when you are fragging or handling them in general.

If you ever frag them I would recommend eye protection just some simple shop glasses will be fine. General precautions are all that's needed.

 

[reddtiger88]

And never boil rocks!

 

[2smokes]

Treat your zoantus and aquarium like your handling poison.But you shouldnt be too skared of the palytoxin.Until today there was only one single recorded human that died from palytoxin after eating a crab.Its not sure if corals in our aquarium maintain theyr palytoxin like they do in nature.The amazonian dart frogs become non toxic in captivity and this could be the case with zoanthus and palythoa also.And not only zoantus and palythoa contain palytoxin.A lot of the LPS corals ,GSP and otther contain this toxin.

 

[ryeguyy84]

I frag Zoas every now and then and like people have said you need to take precautions but it's not like they are spraying toxins all over the tank. Try not to touch them with open cuts, I wouldn't recommend touching anything in the tank with open cuts haha. When fragging I wear eye protection, gloves and if I have one I put on a face mask like a doctors mask.

The owner of a LFS here cuts them on an band saw with no protection. He's a little crazy though

 

[Timfish]

To help keep things in perspective palytoxin is found in a lot of different animals than just palies and zoas. (Some of the soft corals tested had higher levels than palies.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10482387

Certain species of dinoflagellate make palytoxin and so far the only deaths reported are from ingesting it when eating seafood. This paper has pictures (figure 2) of the mottled looking paly that's tested positive for it.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0018235

It found all Zooanthiid species tested were either weakly toxic or non toxic while some Palythoa species were very toxic.

 

[RogueGrown]

Thank you for the info. Im going to go ahead and continue my plan attempting a zoa garden.

 

[Sk8r]

I handled palys long before anybody knew there was a problem: I wear latex exam gloves, out of kindness to corals, as well as my hands, and never had any issue. Use caution disposing of waste coral and rock, bag it; use caution disposing of water (down the drain); and use sense about never rubbing mouth, eyes, or nose with hands with tank water on them. If it itches, use your shoulder, or get a towel.