C&EN did a write up on those nasy brown palys

[Cnidoblast]

https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i2/Palytoxin-danger-hidden-tropical-aquariums.html

while it offers little advice for reef keepers one of the synthetic chemists tasked with making palytoxin from scratch said he uses household bleach to oxidize the compoud into a non toxic form

“Wipe everything down with mild bleach is all we know for sure right now.”

A bleach dip and rinse with tapwater should be done to tools after fragging

 

[wattson]

Palytoxin Is no joke,,I had a little taste of it's power last month and did not enjoy the ride at all ..
Made me a lot more aware to take precautions in and around my tanks ..

 

[wattson]

You think there's a little paly juice in my 3 tank system ?
This is a 24"x24" frag tank..

 

[Sorcha2]

You think there's a little paly juice in my 3 tank system ?
This is a 24"x24" frag tank..

I think should any of the reefing community need to murder someone with Palyotoxin they now know who to call.[emoji57]

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

You think there's a little paly juice in my 3 tank system ?
This is a 24"x24" frag tank..

I love grandis palys. What a cool frag tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've got a humorous palytoxin story.

in the earl 1980's I was a new entering graduate student in Chemistry at Harvard. One of the important steps is to pick a research thesis advisor, so each professor has an open house day.

Yoshito Kishi was one such professor. Got pretty bad reviews from current students, and his research wasn't my thing anyway, but one thing I found remarkable was their gargantuan effort to synthesize palytoxin:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v067n038.p023

Total Synthesis of Huge Paly toxin Molecule Achieved at Harvard
Poisonous macromolecule, first isolated from a Hawaiian coral, weighs 2680 daltons, has 64 dissymmetric carbons and 1021 possible isomers

Anyway, the remarkable thing (to me at the time) was that they needed real samples of palytoxin to compare the synthesized product to to make sure it was the real thing. They sent graduate students to Hawaii to collect coral samples for extraction and analysis.

Still not to the remarkable thing... Dr Kishi said at the open house they had a hard time getting students interested in going to Hawaii to collect such samples. And he was serious, at least I assumed so. I don't know what the issue really was, but I knew right away that I wouldn't fit into a group where no one wanted to take time away from the lab and go to Hawaii to collect samples. I joined a different group.

 

[smiley28]

@wattson that is awesome! Grandis palys are one of my favorite corals.

 

[dragon99]

Still not to the remarkable thing... Dr Kishi said at the open house they had a hard time getting students interested in going to Hawaii to collect such samples. And he was serious, at least I assumed so. I don't know what the issue really was, but I knew right away that I wouldn't fit into a group where no one wanted to take time away from the lab and go to Hawaii to collect samples. I joined a different group.

You could have been their hero if you had joined them and setup a reef tank in the lab so that no one would have to endure a trip to a tropical paradise.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You could have been their hero if you had joined them and setup a reef tank in the lab so that no one would have to endure a trip to a tropical paradise.

lol

At the time, I had not even heard of reef tanks yet.

 

[wattson]

@wattson that is awesome! Grandis palys are one of my favorite corals.

Thanks,,I just moved all them to one tank where I can shut off all flow and feed them directly with food to see if that escalates growth faster...you can see im a little bit of a addict with palythoas..lolol..
You have to be VERY careful with doing anything with them because of the palytoxin topic..learnt that lesson REAL good..

 

[smiley28]

I have 2 good polyps and a baby at this time and I’ve been growing them from 2 polyps for 2-2,1/2 months. Just cranked the lights ups a little and have them doing a 10% acclamation so hopefully they grow a little better.

 

[Cnidoblast]

You think there's a little paly juice in my 3 tank system ?
This is a 24"x24" frag tank..

Really sweet tank - If I may propose a name for it how about LD50?

 

[wattson]

Really sweet tank - If I may propose a name for it how about LD50?

Thanks,,thats probably the best name for this tank..
Liquid Death to the 50th Power..
I know what your saying ,,LOLOL

 

[Cnidoblast]

I was refering to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose but liquid death version 50 works just as well

 

[wattson]

I was refering to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose but liquid death version 50 works just as well

Yes I know..that is the scale that toxins are measured by..as per the toxin potency.

 

[Cnidoblast]

Wattson, You should open a thread on your little horror story of a system
I'd love to know your current NO3 level - seems like zoanthus likes about 3 or 5 ppm

 

[wattson]

Wattson, You should open a thread on your little horror story of a system
I'd love to know your current NO3 level - seems like zoanthus likes about 3 or 5 ppm

yep,,I have a ton of pictures of my grandies and have a few zoa in another tank...after a crash about 2 years ago,,i have been trying to rebuild and grow more than buy,,but that is a slower process ..
Sorry to derail this thread