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Zoanthids Poison 10 1/2 Humans, 2 Dogs and 1 Cat


khuzdul

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I came across this article today, and it is pretty insane. Basically when someone was putting 70 lbs of Zoas (probably 70 lbs of live rock?) , some polyps fell off and were not cleaned up. Over the course of the night it released palytoxins that were somehow aerosolized.

 

The article doesn't mention what Zoa, and I understand they can be hard to scientifically identify anyway. The picture of the specimen is fairly drab. It just lends evidence to the need to be super careful about unknown specimens.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/aquarium-corals-of-anchorage-poison-10-1-2-humans-2-dogs-and-1-cat/

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I wouldn't get too scared. Fornunately this is a scientific blog, not a peer reviewed article. I think something else was at play here. Honestly sounds quite a bit like carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Ah man, death mists are like, my 3rd least favorite type of mists.

 

 

fwiw if there was any truth to that, all of us with oalys in our homes would be experiencing stuff like that. Even without reading that article I can tell it is boloney.

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My favorite part

 

 

"The man who showed up in the ER on August 12 had not worked with or handled a zoanthid coral. But one of his relatives had. Just 7-8 hours earlier, this relative had transferred 70 pounds of live zoanthid coral from a plastic container into the patient's 200 gallon aquarium inside his 1,600-square-foot mobile home."

 

Anyone with a 200 gallon tank in a mobile home has their priorities straight haha.

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If you read the cdc link above there is actually very real scientific information in it. They lab tested samples of the Zoas and they had way more palytoxin in them then many other cases reported to the cdc. The first article linked is a bunch of crap. The cdc article I posted above and here is the facts as they are known if you are interested:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6431a4.htm?s_cid=mm6431a4_x

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ll through the night -- and let me emphasize that you just can't make this stuff up -- the coral seems to have exuded some sort of creeping death mist. According to the CDC's venerable Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, “Patients A and C noted a visible mist and sensed humidity in the mobile home on the morning after coral introduction, leading them to suspect a possible problem with the aquarium.”

 

 

A couple of polyps on the floor raised the humidity, wow, physics be damned.

 

A version of this story happens every year it seems, sometimes in a two story house, sometimes in a trailer, but it always involves a tank that has probably crashed (or the corals were mishandled and are dying) in an enclosed space with little ventilation. It's a risk, and based on the number of poisonings a year a pretty small risk, IMO, but a risk. :)

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If he has a 200 gallon aquarium in a TRAILER IN ALASKA. That's asking for trouble. My best friend is a park ranger in Denali, she says its already cold as **** already this time of year. Yeah, probably has a heater on in a trailer with definitely no windows open. No wonder it happened.

 

Safe coral handling note: The article stated a woman had gone into premature labor due to palytoxin exposure. I had read a similar warning in a CORAL article years ago and, as a safe practice, I do not handle any of my zoanthids during my pregnancies and leave the room when my husband frags for me and open the windows. I would advise any other woman to do the same, it's a small risk IMO, but really not worth it. So, there's a little PSA to our female reefers :)

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People die from zoa poisoning however most of them eat them by the handful. Funny how this shite keeps recirculating. I've killed zoas with a butane torch, been squirted with paly's right in the eyes and mouth just like the money shot in your spank bank, stepped on a few urchins, and still have half a brain to know this is complete bull dookie!

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The polyps just... fell off the live rock? Onto the floor and were left there unnoticed. I'm still pretty new at this but I'm having a hard time picturing it, let alone the "visible mist" they exuded. The details we get always make me think we're not getting the full story.

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This issue seems to come up quite often...

 

I think that the topic is certainly important, but I get annoyed by the knee-jerk reactions on forums and blogs.

 

I definitely don't like the pseudoscientific articles where people talk about either their experiences or the experiences of others but they don't add any real knowledge. It's obvious that various species contain different levels of toxin ranging from nearly nothing to 100x the normal. IMO all these opinion pieces (not really articles) and blogs just create some slight misinformation.

 

Note that I don't profess to know anything about palytoxin - but in general I think it doesn't help the community when all people can do is piece together information from these non scientific accounts. To truly be helpful someone needs to classify palys by toxicity and needs to test all possible methods of transmission. Can it really be vaporized, can it be transmitted by touch, what specifically triggers the release of the toxin, etc. Then a safe handling procedure can be developed. Until that happens I will continue to keep zoas/palys but as I do with anything aquarium related I keep fragging operations and such away from eating areas, use gloves and face protection and have plenty of ventilation. I think that generally with these precautions you can prevent the types of encounters we read about (which by the way is a very very very small % of the total people who keep these corals.

 

Lastly, I did really like one sentence from Jennifer's American Scientific blog entry where she says:

"Preventing coral poisoning currently seems to be a matter of uneducated guesswork, and it will continue to be until someone uses science to figure out exactly how palytoxin infiltrates the bodies of people who have never even touched them or the water they live in."

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This topic is important. Awareness can prevent illness.

 

That being said there is risk in everything. The key is knowing the risk, limiting your exposure to it, and taking precautions.

 

Hardware tools, pharmaceuticals, household cleaners(how many know the msds guidelines and care of their Household chemicals?) Etc. These are all unsafe if not used wisely.

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My favorite part

 

 

"The man who showed up in the ER on August 12 had [/size]not worked with or handled a zoanthid coral. But one of his relatives had. Just 7-8 hours earlier, this relative had transferred 70 pounds of live zoanthid coral from a plastic container into the [/size]patient's 200 gallon aquarium inside his 1,600-square-foot mobile home.[/size]"[/size]

 

Anyone with a 200 gallon tank in a mobile home has their priorities straight haha.[/size]

lmao love it
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Think this was blown WAY out of proportion, and there is clearly more to the story than was presented.

 

Clearly, there was a ton of biological product with a high palytoxin content. The idea that it "somehow got aerosolized" is nonsense. Cutting, chipping, or direct contact was obviously made. My guess is the animals licked or injected something, and the pregnancy part is nothing short of speculation.

 

This ain't rocket science, Use gloves when handling, goggles and mask if chipping, cutting (no reason to use a saw), and don't do anything brain dead like boil the stuff. Ventilation is obviously a good idea.

 

Just use reasonable precautions you would use with bleach or ammonia...it isn'y going to jump out of the tank and poison you.

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Some of the scary palytoxin things scared me at first. When we move I plan on getting some Zoas. I don't plan on eating them and the one day to be reef tank is way too high for the kids to get their little hands in the tanks and were trained early to stay away from the fish tanks, they don't want to anyhow. I even keep the fish food out of reach. I just think that stupid people shouldn't have Zoas lol. Have there been any deaths reported because I haven't read of one.

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Think this was blown WAY out of proportion, and there is clearly more to the story than was presented.

 

Clearly, there was a ton of biological product with a high palytoxin content. The idea that it "somehow got aerosolized" is nonsense. Cutting, chipping, or direct contact was obviously made. My guess is the animals licked or injected something, and the pregnancy part is nothing short of speculation.

 

This ain't rocket science, Use gloves when handling, goggles and mask if chipping, cutting (no reason to use a saw), and don't do anything brain dead like boil the stuff. Ventilation is obviously a good idea.

 

Just use reasonable precautions you would use with bleach or ammonia...it isn'y going to jump out of the tank and poison you.

But... But, the death mists. Come on man, something that scary sounding can't be made up.

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Even in the cdc link, if it was 70lbs of zoanthids, why is the colony so small? And how could something so small in regards to a 1600 sq ft dwelling not only raise humidity, be be able to expel so much "mist" that it was visible. Any of you see a mist in your home, why the #### are you still sitting there? How many of you have ever seen mist ever get expelled? I've heard plenty of cases of squirts here and there, but never a mist. People aren't this stupid to watch a fog roll through their home and think nothing of it. It's all sensationalized crap.

 

i honestly would believe it more if they said the dog ate some and it's farts got everyone sick.

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