Palys. Yes they can kill you. My trip to the ER

[miwoodar]

Dang Mark - glad you're going to be OK.

Standard old greens, eh? I have a similar-looking batch that I moved one night and I ended up tasting metal for the next handful of hours. It concerned me enough that I haven't touched them since and I have put the wife on notice that if I ever start acting wierd (ahem, more than normal) then she needs to call for help.

[agreeive?fish]

glad to hear your recouping well

[JustinReef]

Sorry to hear about this, I can only imagine how painful that would be.

I'm glad people on RC take this seriously. On my local forum, someone posted about something similar and many, many people dismissed him saying it could have been anything and that it likely was not the Palys. Which of course is dangerous thinking...

[aleonn]

Scary stuff, glad you're OK now. When I frag, I never would have thought of palytoxin steam inhalation!

[SaltieG]

Wow, glad your A-ok after that one. I had a massive rock just full of ugly green palys in my old tank before my transfer a few weeks ago. I took it out carefully and set it outside on the deck and let the cold weather/snow kill it off to nothing. This makes me wonder because there have been a couple times in the past where I had my hands in the tank pulling ugly palys and whatnot off the rocks, then afterwards for a few hours I had this strange salty taste in my mouth and it made everything I ate taste like pure salt. Whether being in the tank had anything to do with those occurences I don't know but its a thought.

[tkeracer619]

Back from my nap and feeling a lot better! Still very sore and still having asthmatic symptoms but that is to be expected. I appreciate the kind words! Is definitely helping with my mood and recovery .

Mike getting someone else involved that can speak for you is a good idea should things take a serious turn for the worse. Knowing is half the battle!

Justin, I decided to make a new thread simply because the other one floating around is full of keyboard jockeys doing the same thing. Even those of us with a lot of experience can have a few second lapse of judgement. You are right, treating it as nonsense is very dangerous.

Nobody has taken me up on the free palys??? What gives I will even ship packaged with plenty of dry ice!

[tkeracer619]

Would just like to let everyone know that recovery has been swift and I am back into full swing. A few lingering effects with asthma and some tenderness but overall no worse for wear.

Thanks again to all of those who had kind words and to everyone who clicked this post. Make sure to try and educate those around you about the potential dangers associated with the hobby. It is never fun to be put in this type of situation by something you love. If it were not for this community and the splashing of my vlamingi when he is hungry it might have just been easier to hang up the towel.

instead...

I purchased some pukani dry rock from BRS that should be here tomorrow. I might order some more if I like what shows up. I also purchased another 360g tank... I know, I know... It should be temporary and is going to help me increase volume on my current system along with a few other uses while I do a complete overhaul on my current setup. I don't want to loose any fish and want to minimize coral losses.

[Endy0430]

Wow never heard of this thanks for posting.

[tkeracer619]

A little bump action for this thread. My asthma has finally started to calm down but I still find myself using my rescue inhaler a lot more then I used to.

For those who are not too concerned with the palytoxin... got my bill today. $8600. If that doesn't scare you can I borrow(have) $8600

Remember folks. This is real and can happen to you. Please be careful.

[porksmash]

I've seen 'allergy' mentioned a lot and just want to make sure it's clear that palytoxin has nothing to do with allergies. It's a poison.

[Playa-1]

Sounds like a close call, It's good to hear that you're going to pull through

[MUCHO REEF]

FYI - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2063473

[Alex T.]

Wow. IMO it's just not worth the risk of keeping them at all. It makes me glad that I'm hooked on SPS.

[rl225]

I thought deciding on lights Was stressing me out. Now I find that corals can kill? I picked the wrong hobby

[widmer]

Wow, thanks for sharing and glad you're doing OK. I had what I would consider to be a close call once - got a shipment of various zoas/palys in the mail, each was in its own little ziplock bag and when i was opening one of the bags, it shot me right in the eye. That was a stressful half hour or so before I determined I didn't get any palytoxin. From what I gather, here's an important rule for all of us:

There's no way to know by looking at any particular zoa or paly whether or not it's loaded with palytoxin. Furthermore, just because it's not loaded with palytoxin at one time doesn't mean that it won't be loaded later. Always use precautions as described above, and be sure to dispose of rags and clean the area properly after handling/fragging so that pets/children/others aren't inadvertently exposed.

And on a related note, as mentioned above, always wash your hands and use antibacterial soap after hanging out in the aquarium; mycobacteria marinum seems to be mentioned from time to time as a dangerous hitchhiking bacteria that comes in on our rocks etc; and it is extraordinarily difficult to treat. Think: mycobacteria tuberculosis.

[vbsaltydog]

A word about live rock (poisoning?) .... I was moving a lot of live rock from a local tear down to my tank and I aquascaped for a long while after that. I didn't wear gloves and didn't really notice all of the little scratches that I was incurring on my fingers from the live rock. In the course of an hour, I went from feeling normal to standing in the shower under scolding hot water and still shaking/teeth chattering from being freezing cold. This lasted all night. The next day the scratches were red, swollen, hyper sensitive, and full of little puss filled blisters. It took a few weeks to heal from this. I can only assume that the freezing feeling was from toxic shock from the live rock bacteria. I dont handle it without thick rubber gloves now and, even then, I am cautious.

[TropTrea]

When you think of the number of Reefers that have these beutiful critters in there tanks one wonders how often problems pop up from there toxins and no one realizes what happened. Or perhaps it is a matter that it does not effect everyone as seriously?

So many things are tightly controled by the govenment but to my knowldege there are no laws agaist keeping these poison factories. But with the govenment when they do pass a law it will probably to bann the whole genera that these guys belong in.

I'm glad everyting came out okay for you. But wonder how many individual did not come out okay from there expereince with this poison.

[vbsaltydog]

Originally Posted by TropTrea

So many things are tightly controled by the govenment but to my knowldege there are no laws agaist keeping these poison factories. But with the govenment when they do pass a law it will probably to bann the whole genera that these guys belong in.

Lots of things are lethal but are easily accessible. Potassium, Caffeine, etc. so there is no reason to ban aquaria when there are so many alternative toxic compounds available. Not to mention bullets The only threat that I can see is that I doubt palytoxin is on a standard tox screen for an autopsy but if they do happen to find it, I bet the list of suspects would be pretty short so I dont recommend it as a means of dispatching one's enemies.

Originally Posted by TropTrea

I'm glad everyting came out okay for you. But wonder how many individual did not come out okay from there expereince with this poison.

I would think that there are more misdiagnosed deaths in under developed countries where there is more human interaction with palytoxin in the wild.

Anybody familiar with the haitian "zombies" that were represented in the horror movie "the serpent and the rainbow" ? That is a marine toxin that reduces your vital signs so low that you appear dead. You are buried at a public funeral and then revived later by those that poisoned you. You are close to a vegetable from oxygen deprivation which makes you easily controllable as slave labor, hence the reason for being poisoned, and your are seen alive after you were buried hence the "zombie" myth.

life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

[ganjero]

Just an advice. If somebody feels/knows that they been exposed to this toxin (this should also apply for many other situations), don't take a nap or lay down. You should go to a hospital or let somebody know and have them monitor your status, you can lay down and never wake up.

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

+1 Big thanks for the original story and the just as big thanks for the bump so I could see it. I haven't matured my tank enough for things beyond CUC and fish yet, so stories like these are probably saving me a ton of future pain. Thank you.

[BigCountry74]

Man rough month for this it seems....

Both ER trips I have read were induced the same way - via steam into lungs.

Glad your ok man. That sucks.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by vbsaltydog

The only threat that I can see is that I doubt palytoxin is on a standard tox screen for an autopsy but if they do happen to find it, I bet the list of suspects would be pretty short so I dont recommend it as a means of dispatching one's enemies.

Interesting concept. And I used to sell loads of poison dart frogs. But I never told the custopmers they were only poisinious after being fed certain other things.