Yeah, the worries about palytoxin are... I'm not going to say overblown, but misunderstood. Palytoxin is absolutely a dangerous substance, but it's much harder to actually get exposed to it. To start with, as others have said, most zoa species do not have appreciable levels of palytoxin in their flesh. Second, even if palytoxin is present, getting it from the flesh of the zoa into your body is a relatively difficult proposition. Most exposures that have escalated involve some form of aerosol delivery or mucus membrane exposure - inhalation (from boiled polyps), getting squirted in the eye, or getting palytoxin into an open wound. Palytoxin is a defensive measure to prevent predation rather than a hunting mechanism, so the polyps don't really have a good way to take the toxin from their flesh and give it to someone else. In the wild, the only time anything is exposed to palytoxin is when they eat a polyp loaded with palytoxin. In a tank environment, especially one with carbon and an active protein skimmer, it'll get diluted down and then filtered out before it can do any damage - assuming it's even present at all.
) … being careful should be all the protection you need.
