palytoxin symptoms

[fencer]

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.

[daniella3d]

I am not saying that it does not exist, but that it is something rare, that's all. I am also trying to find any credible reference, names etc..of people who actualy died from it without any luck.

Why would we go eating this stuff? or any other coral in our aquarium that can be toxic? I mean...boiling liverock and breathing the water from it is probably enough (without paly on it) to make some people going into an allergic reaction.

I often work with paly and zoanthids with cuts and wounds on my fingers and never had a problem. I must be pretty lucky since I have been doing this for 2 years now.

What I meat is that there are MUCH higher risk in our aquariums than being poisoned by palytoxine. The vibrio bacterias can probably make you a lot more sick than handling zoanthids. According to the Coral magasine article, no palytoxin were ever found in zoanthids, only in some species of palythoas and propalythoas if I remember well.

Geeezzz..I know a lot of people whom like me are handling zoanthids and paly all the time without even a trace of side effects. Are we so lucky? I think there is a lot of hypocondriac people spreading fear about this.

I read the story of the poisoned dog before, not sure if it is true or not but the dog drank the water full of slime. A lot of thing can kill a dog if consumed...a lot of things can kill a human if consumed. It is plain good old common sense NOT to eat stuff that can be poison. Handling it is another story.

When an article refer to human "deaths" and I cannot even find one credible occurence of it, sorry but I am very skeptical about the whole thing.

Originally Posted by fishytime

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)

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

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.

while deathes are rare, actualy cases of pally poisioning are not rare, I have been about 3 times my self, very mild cases all of them and yes one eas from touching with my hands while I had cut my finger on a chunk of rock with out realizing. Anthony Califo was poisioned twice himself by in advertantly wiping his face with his hand with out even thinking about it.

there is a need to be carfull, but also be reminded that the worst offenders are the hitchhikers not the intentionaly added ones.

Steve

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

wow...an article with only one source of reference which is a forum message posted by one person?

sure...

I touch and frag paly and zoanthids all the time, get slimed all over and never ever had any trace of symptoms from it.

I ever keep some very huge paly that came on some liverock and never have any reaction when I touch them.

My main passion in coral are zoanthids and paly and I love to collect as many variety as I can... sure.... what ever...

What an idiotic thing to say. It's a known fact that alot of people have been sick due to this. Just like telling a person a different thread that they are basically just imagining their symptons 'cause they read about side effects.

[Flash]

unfortunatly this is becoming much to common, and the reefer community (new and old) needs to be aware of the dangers that lurk in our tanks. As fencer said, it only takes one time.

Great link! thanks for sharing!

[waynemah]

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

[cathyg_99]

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