# Palytoxin almost killed an aquarist (AGAIN~)



## vaporize (Apr 10, 2006)

I am sure you have read that zoo and play contains playtoxin and are highly toxic and can kill a person easily, but since there are always new members joining us in the hobby, it does not hurt to re-iterate and also refresh our minds that it does happen in real life, not just in some forum threads.

This time is another guy - that did it with a mix of hot water.

http://reefbuilders.com/2012/03/04/palytoxin/

Just becareful when you handle them and frag them - it can be the last thing you do


----------



## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

pretty scary stuff...


----------



## caker_chris (Apr 22, 2010)

wow that is nuts. I would have never thought of fumes being a problem.


----------



## HOWsMom (Jan 3, 2012)

I've never heard of it - this is seriously SCARY stuff though.


----------



## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

time to shut down my new saltie operation


----------



## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Why was he steaming his zoa's? I don't get it....

Was he trying to kill them?


----------



## vaporize (Apr 10, 2006)

altcharacter said:


> Why was he steaming his zoa's? I don't get it....
> 
> Was he trying to kill them?


Kill it with hot water


----------



## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Here's my opinion on this because I've been thinking about this for a few hours now. And please tell me if i'm wrong.

1. He wasn't cleaning the rock with hot water he was cleaning the bucket that the rock was sitting in with hot water
2. It was hot water and it wasn't boiling. Very little would have evaporated if any since we know it's very hard to make any type of chemical/mineral evaporate. This is why our salinity increases with evaporation.
3. Whoever wrote that article didn't get the facts straight.
4. If he did ingest a palytoxin orally it wouldn't have just affected his lungs like he said it did. A palytoxin affects all cells and if it was ingested orally it would have spread rapidly thru his entire body. Faster than ingesting it by eating or swallowing it.

It's just my opinion but i'm pretty sure he was poisoned by something else like some type of chemical cleaner or possibly something other that wasn't talked about. Just my opinion like I said.

here's the original post from the poor guy
http://reeftools.com/live/forum/showthread.php?t=1593&page=2


----------



## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

The link you provided mentioned that he did clean the rock: "The zoo's were have dead from leaving them over night in a bucket so he decided to clean the rocks off in his utility tub with hot water and scrubbing them"

seems like he is trying to remove the zoas off the rocks by scrubbing the rocks under hot water. very unfortunate incident - best wishes to fast recovery!


----------



## disman_ca (Nov 12, 2011)

Crazy story either way. I use hot tap water to kill things off so maybe I'll think twice. I do side more with altcharacter but perhaps the perfect storm manifested itself.


----------

