Palytoxin released into air by protein skimmer??

[van7271]

Have had them for years along with a skimmer with no problems as of yet. They grow fast and I have scraped them off of glass and rocks.

 

[Doug B]

The threat of palyotoxin poisoning (while the threat is there) is widely thrown out of proportion. Practically all instances of people getting palytoxin poisoning was from fragging, or boiling rock that has polyps on it. I've had zoas my entire reefing career and never once ran into an issue. But I put them in their spot, and leave them alone. Unless you're fragging, or heavily irritating them or cutting or boiling them, you'll be fine.

This is interesting to me. I too have paly's, and zoas. I have moved them around, swapped tanks, all kinds of stuff, no issues. But one of the things that gets mentioned a lot is "fragging" them could be a dangerous situation. But as should be obvious, practically speaking nearly every paly in every tank was fragged by whomever sold them to you. So obviously this can be done safely, regularly, and professionally. So I'd be interested to hear from someone from a place like WWC or a similar organization about what their practices are.

 

[Doug B]

In theory.. YES

You would have to have a large enough colony of the suspect Palythoa that had been abused/agrivated and thus capable of filling the water column with PLTX for any possibility of it happening and i would think the chances of it being aerosolised even then would be very small

So the chances of it happening although not zero are so low as not to be of any real concern

Personally i Just avoid the Palythoa like Grandis,Trash polyps etc (like in the picture) as these are the ones that always seem to be the culprits when incidents with PLTX have occured

Enjoy your Zoanthids, one of the prettiest corals we can add to our reefs

I have a colony of the bad boys in the lower left in my tank. Not on accident. I actually think they are pretty. So far no issues, but I do use PPE and take precautions when handling them directly. That said, I run a skimmer 24/7, and it seems like my hands are in the tank at least twice a week. Thus far...I leave them alone, and they leave me alone.