Palythoa corals - rumors, legends or is this a real danger?

[GontharIRL]

Hi All,

 

As first, I'm sorry if this topic has been on the spotlight somewhere. I tried to find it on the forum but no success.

So my question is this and I'm sure about you'll have a proper answer, so this Palythoa has been in my fish tank for a while. Maybe for a year or more. I haven't had any problem with it, but now it's started to growing so fast, therefore, I have tried to found a way how could I frag it. During my searches, I faced with articles about how dangerous are these sort of corals and I read horror stories about a family who have died because of a coral, like this.

So may I ask your help to identify this coral, please and help regards this toxicity thing?

 

Thank you for your help in advance!

[Timaaa]

havnt heard of anyone dying from this but it can create problems, dont touch your eyes or scrub rocks with them under hot water, dont leave outside for the dog to chew on.  If you do frag them, which I wouldnt because they grow like weeds and there are better looking corals which arent toxic, you can use gloves and eye protection and should be ok, make sure to wash hands after .  if you have cuts on your hand you can get swelling and flu like symptoms for a day or 2.  

[Reefkid88]

 Protopaly's like that, yes do cause a danger,but if handled carefully they don't pose a threat. If they become stressed,they will slime and make other corals mad. 

 

 All Zoa's and Paly's do contain toxins,but Protopaly's are by far the worst ones. 

 

 I wore gloves when I handled them. Never had a problem in 10 years with regular Z's and P's. Just Purple Deaths. 

 

 I know a guy on R2R got his whole family sick due to boiling rock that had hidden polyps like the ones you posted,but nobody died it just made everyone sick. 

[GontharIRL]

1 hour ago, Timaaa said:

havnt heard of anyone dying from this but it can create problems, dont touch your eyes or scrub rocks with them under hot water, dont leave outside for the dog to chew on.  If you do frag them, which I wouldnt because they grow like weeds and there are better looking corals which arent toxic, you can use gloves and eye protection and should be ok, make sure to wash hands after .  if you have cuts on your hand you can get swelling and flu like symptoms for a day or 2.  

Thank you for your answer Timaaa. I did think the same. My design is when the coral will be too big (still has a few years for this) I'll remove it from the thank together with the rock which is on. Until, I will not frag it.

[GontharIRL]

3 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

 Protopaly's like that, yes do cause a danger,but if handled carefully they don't pose a threat. If they become stressed,they will slime and make other corals mad. 

 

 All Zoa's and Paly's do contain toxins,but Protopaly's are by far the worst ones. 

 

 I wore gloves when I handled them. Never had a problem in 10 years with regular Z's and P's. Just Purple Deaths. 

 

 I know a guy on R2R got his whole family sick due to boiling rock that had hidden polyps like the ones you posted,but nobody died it just made everyone sick. 

Thanks, Reefkid, Good to read this kind of experiences. So, yeah I have no problem with it so far, so I'll keep them on this rock until they will be too big. After, I'll remove it with the rock.

[Reefkid88]

Just be careful,during a wc one time I made my purple deaths mad and they slimmed up and killed a few other zoa frags. So just be warned. 

[Timaaa]

7 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

 Protopaly's like that, yes do cause a danger,but if handled carefully they don't pose a threat. If they become stressed,they will slime and make other corals mad. 

 

 All Zoa's and Paly's do contain toxins,but Protopaly's are by far the worst ones. 

 

 I wore gloves when I handled them. Never had a problem in 10 years with regular Z's and P's. Just Purple Deaths. 

 

 I know a guy on R2R got his whole family sick due to boiling rock that had hidden polyps like the ones you posted,but nobody died it just made everyone sick. 

I dont think most zoas are toxic, I have not had any reactions when handling/fragging zoas without protection.  I have had flu like symptoms and eye swelling with handling/fragging palythoas so I consider them toxic and zoanthids not.  Also there is confusion about "palys" and palythoas, palys is usually referring to larger zoanthids that resemble palythoas size, but are just larger zoas.  palys aka larger zoanthids are usually not toxic  or I have never encountered a toxic reaction from larger zoas aka palys.  some types I would consider non toxic"palys" are sunny ds, utter chaos, pink zippers etc some types of zoas that are non toxic would be orange bam bams, tubbs blues, rastas etc, the toxic palythoas would be the button polyps like in the op pic, captain americas, nuke greens, mindblowing, purple deaths, beauty and beast and then the even larger, grandis palythoas

[Reefkid88]

I have read 50/50 of that to be true. I haven't had any issues besides with the Purple Deaths. I have handled most common zoa's rough and NEVER had an issue. 

[Timaaa]

I would consider purple deaths palythoas/protos and contain paly toxin and I too have had a reaction from those.  I have not had a reaction from handling zoas/palys thats why I dont consider them toxic or if they are, they are a lot less than proto / palythoas.   

 

these are some of the morphs I have that I would consider toxic

beauty and the beast

captain jerks

button polyps

mindblowing 

 grandis

nuke greens

mindblowing

captain americas

purple deaths 

 

[Reefkid88]

4 minutes ago, Timaaa said:

I would consider purple deaths palythoas/protos and contain paly toxin and I too have had a reaction from those.  I have not had a reaction from handling zoas/palys thats why I dont consider them toxic or if they are, they are a lot less than proto / palythoas.   

 

these are some of the morphs I have that I would consider toxic

beauty and the beast

captain jerks

button polyps

mindblowing 

 grandis

nuke greens

mindblowing

captain americas

purple deaths 

 

Once again correct....

[Tired]

I just make a point of not handling my zoas/palys/etc barehanded. I have tongs and gloves. I don't need to touch something that, at best, isn't going to like me touching it. 

 

I have some Captain Jerks, and they definitely slime up pretty heavily when you bother them badly enough. They look like button polyps in shape, and they have a really strong feeding response if you offer them food, which makes me think they're a different species than a lot of other things you see.

 

If you can take the rock out of the tank, fragging them should be fairly safe for you and your corals. Just cut them with an exacto knife or something else with a handle, rinse them off, and put the rock in a bucket of water for a bit so they'll calm down before they go back in the tank. 

 

Palys aren't going to kill you unless you do something like cut yourself badly with a knife you've been using to frag them. Maybe not even then. They'd have a decent shot at making you very sick if you boiled a rock with them on it, because that puts the toxin into the air. But I suspect the "this family had these corals and one day the coral made them all sick from inside the tank" stories are actually families who had a gas leak or other issue. Palys don't have any reason to have developed a mechanism to put poison into the air while sitting peacefully in an aquarium. "Someone boiled a rock in this house and it made them all sick", sure, but boiling rocks is a bad idea for several reasons other than palys anyway. 

Just don't get paly substances on your skin, in your blood, or in your lungs. The first two aren't likely to kill you, the third would have a decent chance of hospitalizing you. Not sure I've heard a reputable story of anyone dying of aquarium-related palythoas poisoning. Now, someone who walked on sharp rocks and then on a whole bed of wild palythoas? Yeah, that's really bad for you. That's killed some people. 

[mcarroll]

On 8/13/2020 at 6:47 AM, Reefkid88 said:

I know a guy on R2R got his whole family sick due to boiling rock that had hidden polyps like the ones you posted,but nobody died it just made everyone sick. 

🙈🙊🙉 Boiling rock....that's just a bad idea on the surface of it, palytoxin or no palytoxin.  Yikes!  Some folks in this hobby do some really strange/dangerous things.  

 

New term just for over-adventurous reefkeepers:  "Strangerous". 😉

 

 

[Tired]

Yeah, that's about the worst-case scenario with palytoxin. Congrats, it's in the air now!

 

But you also shouldn't boil rocks because bacteria might wind up in the air instead of being killed, because the rock might explode, because there might be something else toxic on it, because it is definitely going to smell very bad, and because it's a waste of perfectly good rock. 

[mcarroll]

...because it's a waste of energy, because your SO doesn't like that stuff on the stove.  I know we're still forgetting some. LOL  

[Coinee]

For the most part, you're safe with Zoas but I'd still be a bit cautious. But anything Palythoa, you should be cautious of. I don't mess with corals without gloves anyway. But definitely wear something if you frag.

 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070722/#:~:text=Zoanthids (Anthozoa%2C Hexacorallia) are,in the home aquarium trade.