Will zoas / palys kill my family?

[NatureGuy]

I’ve read a few other threads and get the general idea that it’s extremely unlikely, but is there any way to select ones that have no chance of being toxic? I was just gonna skip them, but my resolve’s crumbled very quickly lol

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

AFAIK they all have the potential to produce palytoxin but it's pretty unlikely. Zoas moreso than palys 

[Jaren45]

Just stay away from paly grandis, and all the ones that people call "trash palys". This would be like the big all green ones, captain jerks, texas trash, purple deaths, etc. The colorful small zoas that everybody loves are hardly dangerous at all if handled with a little bit of common sense (like closing your mouth! and maybe wear eye protection if you're nervous)

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Generally speaking, the uglier the paly, the more toxic it is. 
 

With that being said, you’ll be fine. Just don’t do anything really dumb, like boiling your rock, or eating your Zoas. I’ve fragged thousands of Zoas, and I just wear eye protection (some are squirters) and have never gotten sick from them. 

[Koleswrath]

Yes! I've heard they can sneak out of the tank at night and take down entire neighborhoods! Never trust them......never 😉

 

 

 

[NatureGuy]

Thanks guys! 

10 hours ago, Koleswrath said:

Yes! I've heard they can sneak out of the tank at night and take down entire neighborhoods! Never trust them......never 😉

 

 

 

I’m not particularly attached to any of my neighbors so we should be good lol

[Murphs_Reef]

I pull them off rock all the time with my hands / finger nails, often have cuts on my hands at the time (salt water stings a bit) but never got sick...I have a zoa / paly dominant tank .. 

 

Like @NoOneLikesADryTang says, don't go cooking or eating them and your ok! 

 

Fun though to read some threads from people who have 100% been affected almost to the point of hospital and beyond, who have touched a single zoa polyp  in their tank (that contains a small frag) for a split second..... Nonsense 

 

you would have to be dealing with a good volume...

[demonclownfish]

Wear gloves... I accidentally wiped my eye when fragging once.... my eye got super irritated after cutting some RDE's

[Tired]

Sure, they'll kill your family, if you get really toxic ones and then make soup with them. 

 

Bare hands in a reef tank (particularly with cuts) is a bad idea, mainly because of the amount of bacteria that can be present. Sepsis by reef tank is an embarrassing thing to have to explain at the ER. Wear gloves to handle rocks in case of sharp edges, wear gloves if you're injured, and don't point any palys at your eyes. You'll be fine. 

[NatureGuy]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

Sure, they'll kill your family, if you get really toxic ones and then make soup with them. 

 

Bare hands in a reef tank (particularly with cuts) is a bad idea, mainly because of the amount of bacteria that can be present. Sepsis by reef tank is an embarrassing thing to have to explain at the ER. Wear gloves to handle rocks in case of sharp edges, wear gloves if you're injured, and don't point any palys at your eyes. You'll be fine. 

Now I wanna know how they taste... 

[Tired]

Judging by the smell, bad, and salty. Though I'm sure you could disguise it in something. Hypothetically. 

[Murphs_Reef]

8 minutes ago, Tired said:

Judging by the smell, bad, and salty. Though I'm sure you could disguise it in something. Hypothetically. 

Dog shit mixed with rotten clam 

[Tamberav]

No, but avoid the ugly palys and the purple deaths and nuclear green ones. 

 

Small bright colorful zoas would be the safest choice. 

 

Don't ever boil/steam kill anything 🙂

[NatureGuy]

5 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

Dog shit mixed with rotten clam 

You speak with suspicious certainty 

[mcarroll]

Not disputing anything here, but I'm curious why/how folks are so confident about how much palytoxin is in each kind of polyp?   It's not like there are tests for it, so I have to wonder....are we mostly conjecturing or is there some evidence?

 

For the record: Some zoa's have been recorded with higher levels of toxin than what is found in Paly's.  And sometimes palytoxin is present, but inactive.

 

"Palytoxin and Analogs: Biological and Ecological Effects" provides some info...and the whole article is public.  Kind of a tough read, but highly recommended if you're into the topic.

[Tamberav]

29 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Not disputing anything here, but I'm curious why/how folks are so confident about how much palytoxin is in each kind of polyp?   It's not like there are tests for it, so I have to wonder....are we mostly conjecturing or is there some evidence?

 

For the record: Some zoa's have been recorded with higher levels of toxin than what is found in Paly's.  And sometimes palytoxin is present, but inactive.

 

"Palytoxin and Analogs: Biological and Ecological Effects" provides some info...and the whole article is public.  Kind of a tough read, but highly recommended if you're into the topic.

 

Personal experience with fragging coral without gloves...

 

You can call me Test Subject 1

 

 

[Tired]

We'd need a bigger sample size, I think. Human reactions to toxins can vary wildly. An interesting example of this is on the Arachnoboards forum, which is mainly for people who keep tarantulas and centipedes. They have a section where people can put personal experiences with being bitten by a given species, and some of these species have a huge variation. There's a couple centipedes where bite experiences range from bee-sting-like to "considered going to ER for painkillers" depending on some factor that doesn't seem to have quite been figured out. Probably because envenomating people to try and figure out why they react differently isn't the sort of experiment that's done lightly.

[Tamberav]

47 minutes ago, Tired said:

We'd need a bigger sample size, I think. Human reactions to toxins can vary wildly. An interesting example of this is on the Arachnoboards forum, which is mainly for people who keep tarantulas and centipedes. They have a section where people can put personal experiences with being bitten by a given species, and some of these species have a huge variation. There's a couple centipedes where bite experiences range from bee-sting-like to "considered going to ER for painkillers" depending on some factor that doesn't seem to have quite been figured out. Probably because envenomating people to try and figure out why they react differently isn't the sort of experiment that's done lightly.

Well also mostly because of this too

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070722/

[Tired]

Yeah, "we did science on these and figured out exactly how much poison is in the ones we tested" is definitely the useful kind of data. Though I would like to see someone getting zoas from various different suppliers and testing them all, to see how much variation there is. 

[NatureGuy]

If they kill me imma be upset 

[Tired]

If they kill you, be sure to come back and let us know.

[NatureGuy]

They’re just standing there, menacingly. 

[banasophia]

I don’t stock zoas or palys… they are so pretty but not worth the risk to me.

 

This article came out in Coral Magazine the month I started my first tank and it made a strong impression on me from the get go.
https://www.reef2rainforest.com/palytoxin-in-the-marine-aquarium/

 

I read the article and decided not to stock zoas or palys for my first six months as a reefer so I could get more experience. On the bright side, I think this really led me to research and stock a wide range of other beautiful corals. I did end up stocking a few in my first tank, probably around the 6-9 month point, but then I always worried about them, so I haven’t stocked them in any other tank.