Tank crashing and possible palytoxin poisoning

[Playapixie]

I am hopeful that I have have staved off a complete disaster in my 2.5 year old 34 gallon Salona reef, but both my tank and possibly myself are now recovering from paly poisoning.


Here's what happened:

A lot of blue protopalythoa have been taking over several of the rocks in my tank. I've been researching ways to get rid of them (they are aggressive and have overtaken many corals I liked better, and I had suspicions that these were poisonous), but no solutions are ideal. Manual removal is impossible, as attempts to pick them off the rocks lead to mashes of mucousy goo and disintegrated palys that still can't be removed.


About a week ago I tried killing a test patch of them by one suggested method: injecting them with Joe's Juice via hypodermic syringe. This method does kill them, and nothing bad seemed to happen with round 1, so yesterday I tried round 2. I injected a large number of the palys, and while I was at it, I tried to remove the dying tissue from the patch I injected last week.

Somehow in the process of all this, quite a lot of paly mucous got set loose in the tank. My lobophylia, hammer, and acans were NOT ok with this, and pretty soon they were mucousy and all of them were simultaneously shriveling and throwing out sweepers like I've never seen.


Realizing I had real problem, I did a 25% water change (all of the water I had on hand). Things were still looking pretty angry.


Knowing that palys are potentially poisonous, I then took a shower, but I was already feeling kind of sick. Ended up with severe asthma (something I only get when I'm sick), chills, fever to 101, aches and had a very miserable and sleepless night.


At one point in the night I went downstairs to peek in the tank and noticed my Royal Gramma was dead. Removed him from the tank and went back to bed, as i was feeling awful and couldn't think of anything else to do.


By morning I was feeling substantially better (though still wheezing), but my tank was worse. My serpent star's legs were falling off and it looked like it had holes in its body (by later in the day the clowns were trying to eat its insides so I removed it). My lobo was covered in slime and what look like sweepers and was retracted to the point of visible spines, the hammer was shriveled, some (but not all) of my acans were also slimy & retracted, and xenia is melting.


Realizing I had an impending disaster, I went out an bought a canister filter to supplement my Solana's built-in filter and loaded it with carbon, Purigen, & filter floss) and then let it run a few hours while I mixed up more water for a water change.


Today I was as cautious as I could be while handling everything and wore gloves and a mask and washed my hands & arms after every possible contact with the water. Did another 20% water change (would have done more but I was all out of RO water by then; making a water run is on my list for tomorrow now.) Was acutely aware that I might be handling poison the entire time and wondering if I was being stupid regarding my own health, but I was as careful as could be.


I relocated all of the acans, blasto, ricordea, and basically any frags that were small enough to move to my frag tank and will keep a close watch to make sure they are recovering so I don't crash that tank too. They are already looking somewhat better, though. The rest of the corals in the Solana there are too big to move, so we'll see what happens next.


The three remaining fish (pair of clowns and a yellow watchman goby), all of the shrimp (sexy shrimp, pistol shrimp, and scarlet cleaner shrimp), hermits, and a strange mix of corals (some acans, lithophylon, duncan, finger leather, zoas, kenya tree, ricordea, clove polyps...) seem completely unscathed for now.


The lobo, which I've had for 2 years and has grown liberally for me until now, still looks toxic and alien, and I'm not optimistic for it, but it's too big to put in my frag tank and I don't want to do that if its dying and risk crashing that tank. Some of the snails seem to have recovered but a few are still looking like they might not make it. I'm nervous to move them to one of my other tanks, as I don't want to trigger a crash in another tank with any deaths, so for now they are in a shallow tupperware on the sand bed where I can keep a close watch on them.


I am hopeful that my actions today might prevent a total crash, but time will tell. I still have a lot of dying palys that will take weeks to decay, and I don't dare try any kind of manual removal again. Worse, I still have around 50% of the original population of those palys that seem completely alive and well today, and I want them gone now more than ever. Removing the rocks they are on is not an option without completely breaking down the tank, as they are on the foundations of my rock work, and everything is secured with epoxy and zip-ties.


My plan for now is to keep a close watch, keep fresh carbon running with a canister, frequent water changes, and cross my fingers. Debating setting up my hospital/QT tank and moving the fish in to it, but that tank is uncycled presently and that brings a new rash of risks, not to mention that I can't catch the fish and shrimp without dismantling the entire rockwork, which would no small task and would disturb the remaining system further. The fish and shrimp seemed perfectly happy to chase down their dinners tonight when I fed them, so fingers crossed they are ok for now.

The tally:
-Dead: Royal Gramma, serpent star, several snails
-Probably/maybe dying: lobophylia, branching hammer, xenia, several snails
-Appear to be recovering in another tank: Acans, blasto, ricordea
-Never seemed to mind: clowns, watchman goby, 4 sexy shrimp, pistol shrimp, scarlet cleaner shrimp, 5 mini-maxi anemones, tuxedo urchin, clove polyps, finger leather, kenya tree, lithophyllon, duncan, mushrooms


So what happened? I'm certain I triggered a tank crash by trying to kill blue protopalythoa. I am not sure, however, if the crash is the result of an ammonia spike from dying palys, palytoxin, chemical warfare between corals, or a combination of these.


I am not sure if my aches/fever/chills and wheezing are the result of palytoxin poisoning or if I happened to get taken down with a cold or flu at just the right moment. I do know that I will be extremely cautious handling this tank in the future. Last night I was feeling sick enough that I was online reading about palytoxin poisoning (many reefers have reported symptoms like mine) and wondering if I should be visiting the ER. Today I am feeling enough better that I'm pretty sure I'm not in mortal danger (still wheezing, though.)


I would love to hear any suggestions, similar stories, or ideas anyone might have to help save my tank.

The palys in qustion:

[seabass]

Check the ammonia level. You might need something like Seachem's Prime to help out. Keep running lots of fresh activated carbon, and remove any dead or dying animals. Hold off on trying to get rid of the healthy Palys until everything has recovered.

 

And take care of yourself, no tank is worth your health. I would be especially careful if you have any cuts or scrapes. Could have been a coincidence, but don't try and tough it out if you aren't well.

 

I'm up sick too, but mine is just a cold that I'm fighting.

[PRJ]

Glad to hear you are feeling better. I agree with Seabass 100%. No dislike of palys is worth your health.

[marko]

from my understanding of palytoxin, its a vasoconstrictor and very toxic.

asthma makes me think it was more of an allergic reaction, but both are pretty dangerous.

i always wear gloves when handling zoas/palys.

 

if you have no other zoas or palys in the tank, you could use biological warfare - introduce a parasite/predator and let them kill off the paly.

[Lalani]

Oof, sorry for the troubles. Hopefully you can pull the tank back from the brink, but be careful.

[Andy16]

I have palys in my tank that look the same as the ones you pictured. After I got done with moving my tank from my college apartment back to my parents house, I woke up and felt achy and feverish, and eventually was bedridden for like 5 or 6 hours. I thought it was a stomach flu, but I never threw up or had to go to the bathroom like 10 times every 20 minutes like usually happens with that. Also what was wierd is that after that 5 or 6 hours of hell was over, I felt perfectly fine.

Not sure if I was poisoned by palytoxin or not, although I was handling those palys a lot that night. Another factor that might have caused my illness was I didn't get to bed until 5 a.m. and had to be up at around 8, so I got basically no sleep, and was stressed the entire day before trying to move the tank without killing anything.

I always assumed palytoxin poisoning had a pretty acute onset, but maybe its possible to have a slower onset of the symptoms that are less severe just by handling them for extensive periods of time, even with no cuts on your hands. Maybe it can leach through your skin?

 

Also, if anyone wants any of these things, I have way too many. Although anyone finishing reading this thread probably doesn't want them anymore haha.

[Playapixie]

Thanks everyone.

 

Regarding palytoxin poisoning, I now think I just have a cold or flu, given that I seem to have settled into a run-of-the-mill chest cold/cough. I suppose that's a good thing. Still planning to use precautions with the tank, though.

 

Update on the tank (now :

 

Ammonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate less than 2 (usually undetectable)

pH 8.1 (usually runs 8.2 but has occasionally been 8.1 to 8.3 in the past)

KH 8.5

Ca 480

Mag 1350

 

The lobo is a goner (still has tissue but it's massively receded and skeletal spines show through pretty much everywhere.) One of my candy canes also looks bad, but the other looks like it may recover. The candy can was a small frag so it's not a huge loss, but the lobo was gorgeous and 4X bigger than when I got it, so that's a sad loss. I'm not sure if I should call it on the lobo and pull it now so it doesn't contribute to the toxic load, but I hate to do that while it still has tissue at the centers, just in case it could recover. I'm not optimistic at all, though.

 

Lithophyllon has a few spots that look irritated but not terrible. Xenia still looks withered but not worse.

The acans, blasto, and ricordea are doing fine in my frag tank. One of the acans is still receded a bit but it is starting to expand and it did put out its tentacles last night, so I think it will recover.

 

The mini-maxies, all the shrimp & hermits, and the 3 remaining fish seem fine. The duncan, finger leather, clove polyps, green star polyps, zoas, & of course the remaining blue palys seem completely fine.

 

Some of the snails seem to be recovering. I think I lost a few but it's hard to say as I don't know how many I started with. A couple still are acting anemic but aren't dead.

 

So hopefully it's not a total loss. There are still palys dying off in the tank so the toxic load is present still and will be for a while. At least 50% of the original palys are still there...what to do?

 

I can't pull the rocks the palys are on, as they are on the foundation layer of LR and everything is epoxied & zip tied in to place. Seemed like a good idea a the time, but I'll re-think that technique in the future.

 

That's it for now. Thanks for the support.