hillegom thanks for the killer document! Exactly what I was looking for.

i think its happening more frequent because newer people go to the lfs when they start out and the lfs never tell you to wear gloves ect... so i think its just people not knowing the dangers

Cathy it was areosol that got me and i was using tongs

i meant in general... i got sick because i was not wearing gloves and had a killer rash for a few days

Something has to be changed with the acronym LFS. When I hear that I think of a place like Petcetra, Petsmart or Totalpet. Chain stores where they hire young kids that really dont have a clue. It really sucks for the reputable salt water specialty stores. Dont listen to the people in the big chain stores.

I just hope this doesn't become the catchall jump-to conclusion for every unexplained rash/chest pain/what have you people with reef tanks experience. 'I can't explain something, therefore I have an explanation for it' is right up there with humanities most loved logical fallacies.

Our expanding discussion of a phenomenon creates ample breeding ground for people to pin any sort of otherwise unexplained happenings on something that sounds new and scary (for example, there was no such thing as an alien abduction story until Betty and Barney Hill popularized their 'abduction' in popular media).

Now, I don't believe anyone is imagining anything, and the symptoms people have experienced are most certainly real symptoms of something, but the only way to confirm a case of palytoxin poisoning is to a) confirm that it's actually present in the local environment in the first place and b) confirm via blood tests that a person has been poisoned. There are thousands of other things in our reefs, homes, lives, etc. that can cause allergic reactions, rashes, respiratory ailments and you name it that you might not know you've been exposed to. Considering how powerful this toxin is, if it was really that wide spread in our tanks there would be far more dead reefers, or reefers in intensive care than there are.

With that said, I'm not saying that people here or in other places haven't been affected by it, or that it's not in our tanks, or that it's not a risk. Even a small risk with consequences that severe warrants appropriate protections. Thankfully it seems to be a small number of species that harbour this toxin in appreciable quantities, and it's crappy that it isn't easier to tell which ones have it and which don't. I certainly bought a pair of gloves after reading that article a few weeks ago, and have thought twice about boiling my rocks.

Considering how long people have been keeping zoas however, I also don't think it's as big a problem as the part of our brains that evolved to see lions in every rustle of the leaves wants us to believe either.

Now after typing that annoyingly skeptical little blurb, I'm almost guaranteed to drop dead the next time I stick my hands in nano zoa tank.

+1

From what I've heard from others it seems that the ugly brown paly's seem to be the worse for releasing toxin.

Licking my hands? now that's really stupid lol! I am not going to go lick my hands if they are covered with contact glue, but will I die if I touch it? of course NOT.

I am not debating that polytoxin does not exist. The links you posted are all about the toxin itself. I was refering to the extremely very rare cases where people have been affected by it. Only one reference which is nothing but a forum thread. Not from a medical journal, not from an hospital, nothing but a forum mention.

Will I go licking my hand full of palythoas slime? of course not, this is stupid just to mention it. Will I go dizzy and faint? of course not. I simply use common sense. There are much more dangerous things in a saltwater aquarium than the remote possibility of getting poisoned by palytoxin and die.

Yes sure wash your hands...

and please send all your deadly zoanthids and paly to me...I collect them.

" PlTX and ostreocin-D are much less toxic after oral than after parenteral administration. Acute toxicity and deaths have been reported from human outbreaks, but there are no reliable quantitative data on acute toxicity of PlTX-group toxins in humans."
deaths? who exactly died? name? when? where? I never read anything about someone dying from it, except in the ancian art of poisoning the arrows and those were going into the bloodstream. All the people who I have read about supposably getting sick were all ok after a short trip to the hospital. So just tell me who died from it?

If there are "deaths" from it, we should at least be able to find one?

yes but Danniella, your basically telling people that because you handle and frag your zoas all the time, so the problem(or potential for a problem) doesnt exist.....and this is irresponsible advice.....I feel that it is better to broad spectrum warm people about the potential for palytoxin poisoning and let them decide how they wanna handle their zoas and palys.....there have been plenty of cases of people getting sick from handling their palys.....now what would have happened if any of these people had an open cut on their hands???......I have been trying to find the thread where a gentleman's dog died after he was fragging palys, but I havnt been able to find it.....and I disagree with your claim that there are worse things then palytoxin in out aquariums.....palytoxin is the second most toxic naturally occurring substance known to man.....I dont think you can get much worse than that, in our aquariums.....(save maybe a blue-ringed octopus)

Doug give up....this person is determined on her opinion right or wrong and it is obvious she has the proof too say otherwise...this is not a topic that is debatable. Paly toxin exists. Because it is in the home reef system there is plenty of potential of getting poisoned by it. I don't have a lot of education but hypersensitivity to paly toxin comes with time. One day your immune system goes in to overdrive and you get nuked. In my case the incidents of asthma and body chills occurred within minutes of working close to paly colonies. Clearly an immuogenic response. In this case I was using tweezers to remove some algae off the paly rock. There must have been enough toxin to dispersed into the air to affect me.( the tank was half empty to expose the area I wanted to clean). What the hey, I am stupid enough to get poisoned by Palys twice, who knows I far I can take it.Like I said don't have a lot of smarts so I rely on people's anecdotal nonscientific, non government funded stories about this hobby. Remember DRINK and DRIVE ALWAYS...it is the only way to increase your chances of early expiration. Oh yeah...2-4D is absolutely safe to use never had a problem until I got into my 3rd eye.