A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

[Denver aquarist]

I was reading up on various corals and came across toxin poisoning especially in zoas and palys As we all know corals are toxic some can cause mild skin irritation others can lead to death. I wanted to share some of the things I have pulled from the internet from various places. Just as a reminder to us all to wash our hands after touching any corals in our aquarium, as well as making sure we use the proper equipment while fragging.

I have green button palys in my tank, they are really interesting to me because of how they resemble a venus fly trap.
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animalworld.com
The Protopalythoa sp. are recommended as a beginner's coral, but with some caution. Protopalythoa producepalytoxin, one of the most potent poisons known to science. For this reason one should take care when handling them. Don't handle them if you have cuts or open wounds and make sure to clean your hands after handling.


There are a couple of cautionary items to be aware of when you keep Zoanthids:

• Palytoxin
  The members of the Zoanthidae family have varying degrees of poison called palytoxin. All of the Palythoagenus and most Protopalythoa genus produce a high level of this poison in their mucus and gonads. Other genera, such as the Zoanthus genus, have it to a lesser extent, and so a less dangerous degree.
  To be affected by this toxin, it must either be ingested or must enter the bloodstream. It can enter the system through an open wound. It has been suggested by some that it may also be absorbed through skin contact though this is not confirmed.
  The danger to the aquarist is minimal with proper precautions. If you have a cut on your hand, this poison can get into your system, but in average aquarium keeping it is unlikely to pose any danger beyond a localized skin reaction. Some hobbyists wear gloves when handling these organisms.
  
  Here's a couple interesting facts!
  Fish that eat Paly polyps, like the filefish, can bring this palytoxin in to the human food chain. This would be when a predator of the filefish is a fish that is typically eaten by humans.
  Also, Pacific tribes used to use this neuromuscular poison to paralyze enemies and prey animals by coating their spears with the mucus of these corals.
• Vibrio Infection
  Vibrio can at times be in the coral mucus, thus causing a Vibrio infection in humans if care is not taken. Most people have no problem, but caution and common sense play a role here. Wearing gloves and possibly goggles may be the safe route to go. After handling a Zoanthid, make sure the mucus is not on your glove or hand before handling any other corals!

I found this on reefcentral, I am sure there are numerous other stories.

Reefcentral
Palytoxin Poisoning
[HR][/HR]My good friend Mucho Reef asked me to stop by and share my story. I can only hope that I help at least one reefer avoid what I went/am going through!

I am writing this to stress the importance to everyone new and old reefers alike.... NEVER forget to wash your hands after handling anything in your tank.... your sight may depend on it.

On Wednesday 05-12-2010 I was messing around in the tank, the tank and inhabitants are sold and I'm awaiting him to pick it up right now. Anyway, the tank is at my shop where I work..... I fragged a colony of purple deaths for a friend and after having my hands in the tank, I got busy at work and neglected to wash my hands. Not long afterward I felt something in my left eye, rubbed it, and the drama begins!

Wednesday evening the eye was irritated and getting more so as the evening went on... I tried rinsing the eye under water, but that didn't help. I had some re-wetting drops that a friend that works for an eye doctor gave me. I tried those, and within 5 minutes, I was in pain so severe, I had never felt anything like it before. I finally called a friend to drive me to ER that night... The doctor there said that other than the irritation, he couldn't see anything wrong, They flushed the eye and recommended I see an ophthalmologist on Thursday.
View attachment 11149
Went to the ophthalmologist Thursday and after he had looked at it for about 5 minutes, I was told he'd never seen anything like that and I needed to go to the Kellogg eye center at U of M in Ann Arbor. For those who don't know, when a doctor tells you you need to go to U of M around here, it usually means it's something serious!

After about 4 or 5 hours at U of M and about 6 or 7 doctors later, they prescribed some antibiotic eye drops and some steroid eye drops. 1 drop 4 times a day in each eye from each drop. The eye was so swollen that I could not open it all, and even when the eyelid was pried open, it could only be opened slightly. I had no sight in the eye other than light.. No shapes or colors were visible. They sent me home and wanted to see me again the following day.

Friday morning was much better...... the swelling had decreased noticeably and I could vaguely see shapes and slight tints of color. I got good news at U of M that day that they didn't anticipate any permanent damage to the eye. I was told to continue the drops and come back on tuesday again.

This is how it looked on Friday morning
View attachment 11150

Over the weekend the swelling continued to get less, and the eye started to open some...... though the eye was very bright red in appearance. the Sight had continued to get better in the left eye, On Tuesday I could still only make out shapes and colors.. I still couldn't read anything with that eye. I could make things or people out well enough to identify them, but that's about it.

Tuesday 05-18-2010 this is how the eye looked.
View attachment 11151

you can still see the pink in the eye, and no longer the red like it was, as you see the eye is still not open all the way, though that seemed to improve a small amount each day.

The doctors at U of M say, there was still an unusual inflammation of the cornea, but that they still didn't feel there is any permanent damage to the eye or eyesight. I had to trust them at this point and hope they were right.

06/04/2010 - It's been 3 weeks now since the incident. my cornea is still slightly inflamed. One of the doctors there keeps telling me my eye is still angry! LOL She insists it's a medical term! I have probably somewhere around 95% of my sight back in that eye.... I can see everything ok, but it's all still just a little fuzzy.... The inside corner of the eye is still a little red, but you probably wouldn't notice it looking at me unless you were looking for it.

My last trip to the doctor at U of M he looked at it and said, "Wow, what a relief! It looks so much better now. I was really worried for you that first day!" I'm torn whether to think, I would have wanted to know that then...... or now... I guess now is best, because I was worried enough for myself the first few days!

Please, PLEASE don't forget to wash your hands after handling your coral! I know better than this..... I have had saltwater tanks for years and years... and ALWAYS wash my hands afterward..... well, I guess now I can only say usually......

I write this only as a caution to others..... don't forget again.... you're sight depends on it!!!

Thanks for reading.....

Take care

Dan

 

[Denver aquarist]

Wikipedia
Palytoxin is an intense vasoconstrictor,[SUP][1][/SUP] and is considered to be one of the most toxic non-peptide substances known, second only tomaitotoxin in terms of toxicity in mice. Palytoxin is not lethal when topically applied to skin or eyes, but consumed.

Discovermagazine.com

In 2007, a man from Woodbridge, Virginia was rushed into hospital after inhaling an aerosolised version of one of the deadliest poisons on the planet. He was not the victim of a terrorist attack. He wasn’t working in a biohazard laboratory. He was trying to clean out his fish tank.
The man, who posts on the Reef Central Forums as Steveoutlaw, was trying to get rid of a colony of zoanthids – a relative of corals and sea anemones – that was infesting his aquarium rocks. He had heard that boiling water would do the trick. When he tried it, he accidentally inhaled some of the steam.
Twenty minutes later, his nose was running and he had a cough. Four hours later, his breathing was laboured and he was headed to the emergency room. By the time he arrived, he was suffering from severe coughing fits and chest pains. He was stabilised, but he developed asthma and a persistent cough, and had to use steroids and an inhaler for at least two months.
The reason for his sudden illness was palytoxin, a speciality of zoanthids, and the second deadliest poison in the natural world. One gram of the stuff will kill more than a hundred million mice. This poison, liberated by the boiling water, had risen into Steveoutlaw’s airways in a cloud of steam.
Palytoxin is shrouded in legend. Hawaiian islanders tell of a cursed village in Maui, whose members defied a shark god that had been eating their fellow villagers. They dismembered and burned the god, before scattering his ashes in a tide pool near the town of Hana. Shortly after, a mysterious type of seaweed started growing in the pool. It became known as “limu-make-o-Hana” (deadly seaweed of Hana). If smeared on a spear’s point, it could instantly kill its victims.
The shark god may have been an elaborate fiction, but in 1961, Philip Helfrich and John Shupe actually found the legendary pool. Within it, they discovered a new species of zoanthid called Palythoa toxica. The limu-make-o-Hana was real, but it wasn’t seaweed – it was a type of colonial anemone. In 1971, Richard Moore and Paul Scheuer isolated the chemical responsible for the zoanthid’s lethal powers – palytoxin. Now, Jonathan Deeds from the US Food and Drug Administration has found that the poison is readily available in aquarium stores.
Deeds was investigating a case of palytoxin poisoning when he heard about Steveoutlaw’s unfortunate incident. He visited the man, collected a sample of the offending zoanthid, and found that it was indeed heavy with palytoxin. It wasn’t hard to get his hands on more. Deeds bought 15 more colonies from three aquarium stores in the Washington DC area, of the same species that gave Steveoutlaw his whiff of toxic steam. Three of the samples yielded even more poison. Every gram contained enough palytoxin to kill 300,000 mice, or around 80 people.
Unfortunately, Deeds has no clear message for aquarium owners. Some of the zoanthid species that he tested weren’t toxic at all, and indeed, many people claim to have handled zoanthids for years without problems. However, those that contain palytoxin can kill if even a small amount of the poison gets on the skin. And, as Steveoutlaw found, even breathing in an aerosolised version of the poison is a bad idea. The problem is that telling zoanthids apart is incredibly difficult – Deeds only did it with any degree of certainty using genetic analysis.
And tracing the origins of these animals isn’t easy either. One of the aquarium owners who Deeds visited said that he got his zoanthids through mixed containers of corals and rock fragments, known as “frags”, with no information about their origins. The animals can be accidentally introduced on unsuspecting rocks. And many aquarium owners will break the rocks up themselves and exchange them between friends.
As Deeds wrote, “the legendary limu appears to be exacting its ancient curse once again, but this time upon unsuspecting marine home aquarists.” Owners are “often unaware of the deadly poisons they are being exposed to”.
PS Venom enthusiasts know that the potency of poisons is measured using the LD-50 – the dose that will kill half a group of mice after a set time. The most venomous snake has an LD-50 of 25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. For tetrodotoxin, the equivalent figure is 8 micrograms. For batrachotoxin, the poison from the skin of poison dart frogs, it’s 2-7 micrograms. For palytoxin, it’s 0.3 micrograms (or 300 nanograms).​

 

[Smiley]

excellent post!

 

[Andrew_bram]

Re: A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

+1. Told my better half if any time I am working on tank and anything happens to tell the doctor I have a reef tank. She laughed at me.

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[CRW Reef]

Re: A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

+1. Told my better half if any time I am working on tank and anything happens to tell the doctor I have a reef tank. She laughed at me.

No Joke!!!!!! I have told my wife that as well, as there are toxins in lots of things, in addition to zillions of different bacteria.

excellent post!

+1 I agree, thank you Beau

 

[Andrew_bram]

Re: A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

I got stung by a lion fish once let me say I learned my lesson about poisons then.

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[JuanGutz]

I got stung by a lion fish once let me say I learned my lesson about poisons then.

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+1 got stung by one in the Philippines when I was like 12 haha, had another incident with sharks and now I'm afraid of bodies of water and can't be in open water with fish, hoping to change that!

 

[FinsUp]

I'm thinking about keeping a list of the corals in my tank on a card in my wallet, just in the event that something happens and I wind up in the ER. Purple deaths, green buttons, etc, would be on that list...

 

[cremer9]

[attachment=63400:name]they keep my clown safe

 

[Mav]

Spooky! Time to invest in gloves! And who said beauty can't kill. Anyone know of where to find a list of the most toxic ones? Searched the net and couldn't find any info. This may be a great thread to sticky. I assume I'm not the only one who had no clue about palytoxin. I heard nuclear holocausts are toxic and possibly green button palys. Great info! Thanks for the research!

 

[Denver aquarist]

Thanks guys! I agree it is scary stuff just something to keep in mind as we all put our hands in the tank and many here frag corals. I posted a week or so back that I was removing palys from my tank, the first time I did it I used my hand and pulled them off. I had a small cut on my finger, the day after I pulled them off my hand was numb for at least half the day. The next time I went back I used tweezers and made sure I sterilized the tweezer and washed my hands really well. I have touched them or rubbed against them many times I only had that reaction after pulling them apart and constant touching.

 

[CRW Reef]

Re: A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

Bump for a reminder to always wear eye protection!!!

 

[cdrewferd]

Good call on bumping these Chad.

 

[TexSun]

Thanks for the useful post!

 

[Ambrosio Aquatics]

i was just moving things around yesterday and some loose dragon eyes almost blasted me in my eye just by picking them up with tweezers . lucky for me it got me in the four head. so take extrem caution at all times, not just fragging

 

[MartinsReef]

Re: A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

Always wear eye protection and gloves!

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[blacklabz]

Wish I would have done this search earlier. I will just second the comments around eye protection. Using gloves is fairly well known, but I never considered eyewear. I was moving some rocks with various polyps into buckets when a single drop of water popped up, and wouldn't you know it, went right into my eye. I didn't think too much of it, but did flush my eye out a bit later (should've done that right away). By the next morning, my eye was screaming red and discharging puss. On a second round of stronger antibiotics now, but still not cleared up 3 days later.

[attachment=64699:name]

 

[Andrew_bram]

A reminder to us all about Palytoxin poisoning

Ouch hope all is well

 

[CRW Reef]

Yes even you can get toxin sprayed young Jedi!!!!

Remember to always use glasses when cutting zoas and plays. I recently got blasted/squirted in the eye when cutting some zoas with out eye protection. I have a red eye and it is a tad sore, but thankfully no other symptoms that im aware. This happened Tuesday evening and the pic is from today, so its been almost 48 hrs and my eye is still irritated.

Moral of the story......always wear glasses when cutting palys and zoas!!!!!

 

[SynDen]

Wow didnt know that, good thing I usually wear gloves when in the tank but will have to be sure and wash extra afterwards. Thanks for the info