Zoanthid Warning.

kablamo

kablamo

Member
Just a warning because I had no idea, and I'm sure there are at least a few of us who still don't know.
Zoanthids are toxic. I just read on another saltwater forum about a mans dog being killed by fragging zoanthids. The owner left the room, and when he came back he saw the dog lap some saltwater, and he was dead in about 12 hours.
Apparently the toxin they produce, palytoxin, is the most deadly natural toxin in the world, and is also the most complex molecule to occur in nature.
<5 microns is fatal for a human being. That is NOTHING.
Please everyone, be safe, wear gloves and goggles, and be very careful with kids and pets while working with these beautful but deadly animals.
 
nomad

nomad

Member
That is one of the reasons why it is reccommended that gloves be worn, because even just grabbing a rock of zoos while working in your can have unforeseen consequences
and not just form zoos.
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
just found this
Palytoxin
The crude ethanol extracts of the Palythoa toxica proved to be so toxic that an accurate LD50 was difficult to determine. More recently, the toxicity has been determined to be 50-100 ng/kg i.p. in mice. The compound is an intense vasoconstrictor; in dogs, it causes death within 5 min at 60 ng/kg. By extrapolation, a toxic dose in a human would be about 4 micrograms. It is the most toxic organic substance known!
Shimizu [27] and Moore [28] published the chemical structure of palytoxin and it was prepared synthetically in 1989 [29,30]. Palytoxin is a fabulously interesting compound, with a bizarre structure and many extraordinary signs (Fig. 6). Palytoxin is a large, very complex molecule with lipophilic and hydrophilic areas. The palytoxin molecule has the longest continuous chain of carbon atoms known to exist in a natural product. In the molecule of palytoxin, C129H223N3O54, 115 of the 129 carbons are in a continuous chain.. There are 54 atoms of oxygen, but only 3 atoms of nitrogen. Another unusual structure of palytoxin is that it contains 64 stereogenic centers, which means that palytoxin can have 264 stereoisomers! Added to this, the double bonds can exhibit cis/***** isomerism, which means that palytoxin can have more than 1021 (one sextilion) stereoisomers! This staggering molecular complexity should indicate the difficult nature of designing a stereocontrolled synthetic strategy that will produce just the one correct (natural) stereocenter out of >1021 possible stereoisomers.
Palytoxin induces powerful membrane depolarization and ionic channeling [31,32]. Palytoxin is a potent hemolysin, histamine releaser, inhibitor of Na/K ATPase, and a cation ionophore [33]. It is also a non-TPA-type tumor promoter [34,35].
 
euphoria

euphoria

Active Member
Wow, I didn't know this. I always touch my orange zoos w/out any gloves. Does it have to somehow go through your blood to do damage or what? Or do you have to "eat it" :D
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
Many people have complained of sore/numb/limp hands, I believe you have to have cuts, like the article said, the toxin is soluble in saltwater, and can enter your bloodstream through tiny cuts, but keep in mind, this is while they are being cut apart by razorblades and fragged. Just like anenomes when they stress put out chemicals that will crash your tank, zoos do the same, I'm not saying anyone with zoos will die if they look at the tank for more than 10 seconds or anything, just be extremely careful while fragging zoos. They squirt, a lot of zoo fraggers wear masks for this reason.
I just don't want anyone on these boards showing up on the darwin awards. I would link to the story where the man's dog was killed, but it's not allowed.
 
euphoria

euphoria

Active Member
so if you are not fragging them and just move them around the tank and your finger touches them a bit, that's ok I assume.
Plus how would you frag them? Do you just pull them off of the rock and put on another?
 
bigarn

bigarn

Active Member
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it only Palythoas (sp) that release this toxin? :thinking:
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
From what I've read, and I'm no taxonomist, so find out for yourself, that certain species of zoos do produce this toxin, I'm just saying it's always good to be safe.
Wear gloves when you handle your tank, not just so you don't get poisoned, but also so you don't poison the tank!
 
speg

speg

Active Member
I often times use a needle to extract the juicy insides of zoanthids and inject it straight into my blood stream.. havent noticed any negative effects yet.
j/k
 
D

dholmblad

Guest
Ummm, this might explain why the tip of my middle finger on my left hand was nub for a little while a few days ago..
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
I think it is only a couple of subspecies of zoos that are very toxic. Still, I wouldn't go eating random zoos with your morning cherios.
 
ross

ross

Active Member
At the lfs where i work i frag zoos everyday and almost always have at least 1 cut and nothing has ever happended. Maybe im just lucky but i dont think we need to get too worked up over zoo poison.
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
No one is going to up and throw all of there zoo colonies in the garbage for fear of instant death, I'm just saying, we should always be aware of what is in our tanks and what we are handling.
 
ryan115

ryan115

Member
If anyone is scared of thier zoos now, I am young enough and foolish enough to risk them. Just to make everyone happy i guess i will put my self in harms way and take your zoos
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
I handle various corals at the LFS where I work,we consider it a 'coral farm'.My boss and I are very sensitive to them,especially zoanthids.Yes it is true that palythoa contains more toxin,but regular zoanthids can pack a punch too.I am stubborn about wearing gloves{or stupid}...and constantly suffer from welts,numbness,aches,and have even experienced euphoria and nausea.We do use a magnifying light though {which protects our eyes} and when we use the dremel on corals we wear safety glasses.
 
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