My run in with Palythoa grandis- Palytoxin!!

[MSreefdoc]

Last night I decided to do a quick water change. At around 8:00pm I decided to move a rock of unknown palys(was a hitchhiker) so that I could put a piece of new SPS in that spot. A few palys had grown down on the base rock where I was to put my new frag. I thought about it for a moment and decided I didn't like these brown palys enough to save 2 polyps when I have 50 others in the colony. So I made the horrible mistake of pinching them off the rock(had to use my short, freshly cut fingernails to remove them). SPS is in place, all is good; time for me to go study for my medical school exam block next week! At 9:00pm I begin studying. At 11:00pm I notice I cannot think clearly, and learning my material is 10x harder and taking entirely too much time. Feeling frustrated and cold, I get up and to turn the heat up and take a bathroom break. It's about 12:30am now; studying has slowed even more, I feel colder, I find it hard to take a good breathe(like a mild asthma attack-for which my daughter's albuterol inhaler did nothing), and I have a few tingles randomly over my trunk and extremities. I figure the tingling is from sitting too long, and once I stood up I was surprisingly dizzy. In general I feel crummy and decide to take my temp. At 1:00am I have a fever of 101.1 F. My heart was beating well over 100bpm, and I felt worse and worse as each minute passed. By 2:00am my temp had reached 102.4, the tingling over my body was worse and I felt kinda disoriented; my vision was also blurry, but not too bad. After replaying my day over and over in my head I had nothing. The food I had eaten was cooked by me and nothing was raw, I went to school from 8am-11am and came home to an empty house(the wife took the kids to the beach for a couple days). Finally I remembered the tank and simply googled "things that can make you sick in a reef tank". One of the first things to pop up was Palythoa grandis- apparently the worse paly to touch and guess who just dug his finger into a couple of these guys, scratching them off the rock. Upon inspection my hands had no cuts, but there was a an itchy bump on my arm that I scratched not thinking about it before washing my hands. At 4:00am I decided to take some ibuprofen, get a shower, and then face the question of whether not to go to the ER. I have been in the hobby for 3 years now and never heard of this toxin(although after looking it up I see there is some information on it.) As I type my fever is at 101.0 F. I feel much less badly now(probably due to the ibuprofen), but still not too great. Since I have 3 exams monday and I need to go to class and study, I have decided not to go to the ER. Hopefully this will wear off with adequate hydration and time.

[aguila88psi]

Man that sucks, hope you get better soon, I haven't had any issues with palytoxin but I'm well aware of it.

[MSreefdoc]

I'm just thankful I didn't have a cut on that hand for it to get down in; my day would have been much worse. The toxin probably entered through the softer tissue under the edge of my nails since they had been cut yesterday. Although, I may have very well got it in my mouth somehow; there is no way to know. Don't think I have ever been this sick in my life. I learned a mighty hard lesson today in the importance of wearing gloves when I work on my tank, never again.

[MSreefdoc]

ill try and post a picture of my colony later when I get home.

[MJSavage]

Wow, I'm glad to hear you are feeling better. Good luck with the exams.

Mike

[glaukos]

+1!

Very nice of you to share that experience,so we are reminded that these guys can be dangerous if not handled with caution.

[A. Grandis]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/no...tore-near-you/

http://www.reefsmagazine.com/forum/r...influence.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palytoxin

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1804905

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1858696

I'm glad you're feeling better now.

We simply need to use gloves, goggles, close our mouths and clean up really well after handling the zoas. No pets/children around!! As far as I know every and any zoanthid carries toxins, including/mainly palytoxin, and we need to be careful every time we handle them.

Other things could cause similar symptoms like stinging cells/bacteria (anemones/corals), so not all the blame goes to the palytoxin (zoanthids) all the time. Good to watch for the other organisms as well.
We know in your case it was most likely the polyps though.

I see all P. grandis beautiful!!

Grandis.

[fishpureluck]

Hmmm, I wonder if I'm immune to it. I just ripped a bunch of them off of the rocks that I pulled out of my 180 tear down. I probably ripped off hundreds of different paly's that day. I even had one squirt in my eye. The only issue that I had was all of the calcium slivers stuck in my fingers from peeling off cabbage corals and the occasional feather duster tube. I guess I got lucky! Next time I'll suit up! I never thought about anything in there killing me. Thanks for the info! Now I'm going to be paranoid when I stick my hands in the tanks. I thought my biggest worries were getting mauled by one of the fish in my 300 or getting jabbed by my giant rabbitfish. I guess if I want to get rid of Paly's, I'll just transfer the rocks to my 300 for them to eat. No polyp comes out alive in that tank. Mojano and aptasia get devoured too.

[MSreefdoc]

@ fishpureluck
I too have handled zoa's and paly's before without getting sick(I would assume most refers that have had these in their tank would say the same). I have pulled polyps off rocks to put them on frags and fragged big colonies. Actually, I have never worn gloves to mess with my reef. The thing is that I had only so much as lightly touched this particular species(P. grandis) before this happened. I have read many articles that state that there are certain spp that you should really worry about, but many others do produce some form of toxin in varying concentrations. This toxin is also produced in 10 spp of dinoflagellates so be careful with this too. I don't believe we produce antibody to the toxin(correct me if someone knows me to be wrong), but cell mediated immunity such as macrophages phagocytizing the toxin should play a part in clearance. Look up your specie(s) of palys and see what you can find; I'd be interested to know. The toxin being able to cross intact skin has not been proved; though you think that if there was in fact any toxin in what was squirted in your eye, then there would be a response. Also it might be worth noting that I'm a pretty healthy guy(6'2" 220lbs, eat healthy and exercise regularly), so don't think you guys are too tough to get this lol!

[fishpureluck]

I'm the same size as you and I definitely don't think I'm too tough for it. I'm wearing gloves and goggles from now on! A few of the colonies that I ripped off of the rock looked exactly like the palys that the one post had pictures of. Who knows, they are fish food now, I stripped everything from the rocks that are going into my 220 build and put them in the 300 for the filefish/angelfish/rabbitfish/triggerfish/wrasses/puffers to eat. They love it. They were "ugly" polyps any way. They got out of control pretty quickly and took over prime SPS and LPS spots.

[A. Grandis]

P. grandis aren't that ugly. Well at least to many of us.
To me it's one of the most amazing polyps there is!
Would you guys please post a picture of the polyps you're talking about?
It's aways good to show exactly what type of zoanthid we're talking about when commenting about Palytoxin poisoning.
Thanks in advance!

Grandis.

[MSreefdoc]

Yesterday I tried to get a shot with my iPhone, but it was too blue and crummy due to the LED's. I'm not home right now so I looked for one online and this is very close to what mine looks like, plus this is a better image than I would be able to take. I know there are many variants, but this plain brown guy is the one that roughed me up for about 30 hours.

[A. Grandis]

Not a special beauty, but not that ugly either.
I like it. Some times they morph, depending on light and feeding, I've heard.
I think the more light, with appropriate adaptation, the stronger the colors should be.
Dry coral food will make the polyp bigger and higher growth/reproductive rates, also would help with colors as well.
Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Grandis.

[fishpureluck]

I've had them change colors and size with placement and food. My problem was that they were getting out of control and taking over prime real estate. Colorful Zoes, acans LPS and SPS or brownish Paly's, I chose to get rid of them. Free fish food! I've also read that the fish won't eat the poisonous polyp's, but my fish seem to eat everything that I put in their tank.

[NavyBlueSea]

So what type of gloves do you wear when handling these? Nitrile?

[toothybugs]

I'd double glove regardless, rocks can tear pinholes in nitrile or latex just as easily.

I picked up my first couple frags for the new system last night, and I have a pocketful of gloves with me yoinked from the lab for the first few times I'm messing around til my order of gloves shows up.

[A. Grandis]

Doesn't matter what type of gloves to wear. Just get the one you like most.
They are to protect against the contact with the toxins and if they get damaged just change them.

Grandis.

[Mael]

yah I dont wear gloves for much in the tank(which al lot would yell at me for) but for working with zoas and palys I do. I lost a small paly colony recently when my goby buried the entire colony in the morning and I didnt get home till 7 or 8pm, unburied the rock and all the paly's had turned into a gel like slime. used gloves, dipped rock, scrubbed rock, dipped in fresh tank water and put it back in once it was clean. Was dead scared of the toxin since the paly's had basically melted but everything went fine.

actually some of the coraline turned pink....

[A. Grandis]

Originally Posted by Mael

yah I dont wear gloves for much in the tank(which al lot would yell at me for) but for working with zoas and palys I do. I lost a small paly colony recently when my goby buried the entire colony in the morning and I didnt get home till 7 or 8pm, unburied the rock and all the paly's had turned into a gel like slime. used gloves, dipped rock, scrubbed rock, dipped in fresh tank water and put it back in once it was clean. Was dead scared of the toxin since the paly's had basically melted but everything went fine.

actually some of the coraline turned pink....

Wow!!!
Something else was happening there, my friend!
Coraline don't turn pink just because a bunch of zoas died.
Also, the simple fact that the zoas were buried doesn't mean they died because of that.
They can be buried/closed for weeks!
Some times for months!
Hummmm...

Did you check your alkalinity, calcium and magnesium?
Coralline could be affected by one or more of them.

Good you used gloves though.

Grandis.

[Mael]

yah, I did a full test run on the DT that night and everything was normal. Three other sets of palys that did not get buried are doing great(pandora, orange, green) these were Pandoras.....not sure what happened to them under the sand in the short time they were in there but when I gently pulled the rock out a bunch fell off the rock and the rest were hanging like they melted. Dipped for a while(~10min in Revive) and everything else came off the rock.


My nassarius, diamond goby and ceriths all mix up the sand bed quite well, although these ended up buried in the deepest part of the sand bed. All my other zoas/palys are doing great, and no other rocks with coraline turned pink. Again, not sure what else was done to them that day before they were buriedby the goby. Now nothing is kept on the sand bed anywhere near his little cave.

edit: Also after a cpl days by itself keeping an eye on it the rock went back into the tank, will be interested to see if the pink changes.

also should mention how lucky I got, after the above mentioned pandora paly death I was getting a frag pack from a local yesterday and it came with a 3 polyp frag of pandora for $5, I was very happy as I really like that color variation of palys and have great growth rates with paly's in my tank.

[MSreefdoc]

@Mael
I think wearing gloves only when you handle palys/zoas is just fine, however, if you have a cut on your hand(whether it's bleeding or scabbed over) just go ahead and throw your gloves on to play in your tank regardless of what you might be handling. You can get a few nasty infections from our little closed systems. As to your colony "melting"... if it was only a day I wouldn't think that is from being buried for just one day unless there is some high population of a bad bacteria living in you sand that killed the polyps. Irritation from sand for one day should not kill them.

[Mael]

Thx for the advice. Not sure what it was unless he buried it the day before(depending on work schedule I may not see the tank with lights on for a cpl days) still 2 days in there shouldnt have caused this to happen. Chalk it up to bad luck and make sure it doesnt happen again.

[mikid]

a few years ago I was fragging zoas into pack and rubbed my face....got into 1 eye...swelled shut for a few days, watered,nothing worked....call advise nurse...they said to come in asap....but after talking to others, there is no nero-toxin to us...went away in a few days....never again....put hands in tank all of the time.=, but will never frag zoas/paly...anything without gloves....wasn't a good experiance to have....