PSA: Be Careful With Palys?

[Sharkbait19]

Hi,
If you’ve read my build thread recently, then you’ve probably seen the crisis that occurred two weeks ago, where a majority of my lps corals started to melt. Thankfully, I managed to save them, and they began to slowly grow back. The cause was a mystery, and I assumed that it had to do with the Xenia that I pulled from the tank, releasing slime. Then a very similar problem happened yesterday when I moved a rock during a water change and accidentally crushed some palys. Some slime entered the tank, and later that night, some corals began to close up. I figured that they just responded poorly to the water change, as they typically do.
Then this morning I turned on the blue lights and noticed tentacles peppered around the sandbed. Every euphyllia was practically dead. I knew it had to be the palys, and it is highly likely that when I was pulling Xenia two weeks ago, I accidentally crushed some palys as well. I immediately did a 50% water change and put in fresh carbon, just like I did before. The corals are beginning to open, though there are two frogspawns that just look way too far gone. Then again, it seemed that way last time as well.
I just wanted to write this to warn anyone owning palys to be careful when handling them, both outside and inside their aquariums.
Also, if you are new to the hobby and are looking to purchase palys, think twice. If I had known that the two “cool looking polyps” that hitchhiked on my rock would turn into a poisonous blanket, I probably would’ve exterminated them on the spot. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Sharkbait

 

[blaxsun]

Good PSA - don’t tick off your zoanthids and palythoas!

 

[G Santana]

I keep two palys on their own rocks, Trim them back a little at a time when they start to wander. Always careful and in small increments.
Good luck, I'd do a water change and use carbon until things get back to normal.

 

[czhao1009]

This couldn't have been a more timely post... (too late for me) I just had a random sudden LPS "crush" overnight

Basically it is similar to what you posted. I woke up one morning and all the tentacles from torch and frogspawn are completely retracted, among other LPS corals kind of just melted away. I've never come across this before and didn't know what to do. Tested salinity, CA and Alk, all within normal range. Did a few 10% water changes over the course of 2 days but most LPS are now gone. There might be a few heads of torch surviving, we shall see

GSP survived (they are super tough...). I had the suspicion it was the large colony of paly/zoa. Nothing new was added to the tank and nothing has changed for a long time. I will try to remove them and see if the other corals will recover. The paly colony isn't even that nice looking - I initially put them in without knowing this. Lessons learned!

Funny thing is I had the thought of removing/selling that colony of paly a few weeks ago because I was trying to think of some new aquascape and it didn't really fit anywhere... huh, if only....

 

[Sharkbait19]

This couldn't have been a more timely post... (too late for me) I just had a random sudden LPS "crush" overnight

Basically it is similar to what you posted. I woke up one morning and all the tentacles from torch and frogspawn are completely retracted, among other LPS corals kind of just melted away. I've never come across this before and didn't know what to do. Tested salinity, CA and Alk, all within normal range. Did a few 10% water changes over the course of 2 days but most LPS are now gone. There might be a few heads of torch surviving, we shall see

GSP survived (they are super tough...). I had the suspicion it was the large colony of paly/zoa. Nothing new was added to the tank and nothing has changed for a long time. I will try to remove them and see if the other corals will recover. The paly colony isn't even that nice looking - I initially put them in without knowing this. Lessons learned!

Funny thing is I had the thought of removing/selling that colony of paly a few weeks ago because I was trying to think of some new aquascape and it didn't really fit anywhere... huh, if only....

Sorry to hear.
Did you damage the palys at all?

 

[czhao1009]

Sorry to hear.
Did you damage the palys at all?

I don't think so. The day before it happened was not a water change day for me, and typically I just feed the fish everyday. Only on water change days I would reach inside the tank...

 

[Beau_B]

All palys? Some palys? Capt. Jerk? Green? What are we talking about. I have Sunny Ds, and other that are popular…

 

[Just John]

All palys? Some palys? Capt. Jerk? Green? What are we talking about. I have Sunny Ds, and other that are popular…

I don't know how accurate it is, but here is an article about the subject.

https://reefs.com/the-dangers-and-myths-of-zoa-toxicity-part-1/

 

[TheDragonsReef]

Sorry to hear that. What kind of filtration is on the tank? I kill easily a couple hundred trash palys every few weeks in one of my tanks and its never hurt anything else in the tank. However i also run carbon 24/7, have a ton of filtration and a huge skimmer so if anything ends up in the water it gets pulled out fairly quick.

 

[Jekyl]

You sure it has anything to do with the palys? I've kept them for years now. Also looks like either dinos or bubble algae going on.

 

[Sharkbait19]

You sure it has anything to do with the palys? I've kept them for years now. Also looks like either dinos or bubble algae going on.

This was a few weeks ago now - there was bubble algae but isolated to my acan (my emerald took care of that).
Most corals got better.

All palys? Some palys? Capt. Jerk? Green? What are we talking about. I have Sunny Ds, and other that are popular…

To my knowledge only the wild ones are the super toxic guys - like capt. jerk.

Sorry to hear that. What kind of filtration is on the tank? I kill easily a couple hundred trash palys every few weeks in one of my tanks and its never hurt anything else in the tank. However i also run carbon 24/7, have a ton of filtration and a huge skimmer so if anything ends up in the water it gets pulled out fairly quick.

It was the fluval 13.5 filtration - I don’t think I was running carbon at the time of the incident.

The only reason I suspected palys is that I killed a lot in the tank when all the corals started doing poorly.
I also started dealing with problems I suspect were related to leather corals a bit after. I have since upgraded the tank and all corals started doing better.

I don't think so. The day before it happened was not a water change day for me, and typically I just feed the fish everyday. Only on water change days I would reach inside the tank...

If you never did anything to annoy the palys I don’t think it would be related to them.

 

[A Young Reefer]

All palys? Some palys? Capt. Jerk? Green? What are we talking about. I have Sunny Ds, and other that are popular…

Correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure that sunny D’s are considered as zoanthids not palythoas.

 

[MaxTremors]

Correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure that sunny D’s are considered as zoanthids not palythoas.

Sunny D’s are Palys.

I don’t think there is any truth to this, I’ve kept palys and zoas for over 20 years, tons of different kinds, including P. grandis and a lot of the species/morphs that purportedly contain palytoxin, and have bothered, crushed, fragged, scraped, and pulled them out and never had any issue. I generally run carbon in tanks that have soft corals, but there have been many times where I didn’t, and still no issues. I’m guessing that it’s likely just a coincidence and something else is wrong. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s not possible, but to claim that was the cause of your issue and put out a PSA seems a little premature. At the very least you should keep investigating.

 

[Jdadams]

I know a guy with palys and when they spread to where he doesn’t want he goes in with tweasers and rips them off with no issues. But his tank is a 90gal. Maybe in a small tank the toxin is more concentrated. Who knows

 

[dvgyfresh]

Sunny D’s are Palys.

I don’t think there is any truth to this, I’ve kept palys and zoas for over 20 years, tons of different kinds, including P. grandis and a lot of the species/morphs that purportedly contain palytoxin, and have bothered, crushed, fragged, scraped, and pulled them out and never had any issue. I generally run carbon in tanks that have soft corals, but there have been many times where I didn’t, and still no issues. I’m guessing that it’s likely just a coincidence and something else is wrong. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s not possible, but to claim that was the cause of your issue and put out a PSA seems a little premature. At the very least you should keep investigatingc

Sounds like a lot of things combing into a polyp bailout event. Could’ve been palys , could’ve been no carbon running and all corals suddenly started chemical warfare? Idk I wouldn’t blame palys soley, I abuse mine pretty often - I think my green zoas are palys

 

[jcolliii]

Sunny D's are Palys, Kraks (all morphs) are Palys, AOG's (and all of the AOG impersonators) are palys. Most of the very large zoa-like things. I peel grandis off of rocks once and awhile. Just have to do it gradually, grab them by the edge of the mat around the base and slowly peel back. I do it in water, outside of the tank weaking gloves and safety glasses though - and that water does not go back in the tank. Gotta respect ALL corals. A scratch from any coral can get infected and be problematic. Wear gloves. Never rip or tear. Usually you can get the edge of the mat started with a scalpel blade, grab that with tweezers firmly and slowly pry back.

 

[Sharkbait19]

To be clear, I’m not saying it’s not possible, but to claim that was the cause of your issue and put out a PSA seems a little premature. At the very least you should keep investigating.

I’m not talking about a few paly frags, I’m talking about an entire (invasive) colony that was crushed by a rock, and all deflated and squirted some juice. I noticed the effects almost immediately. This PSA won’t apply to everyone—every situation will play out differently. In my case, I did investigate, and given both the time table of the incident, and the fact that this aquarium is only 13.5 gallons and filled with invasive palys, it only makes sense. Of course, it could just be a coincidence that the corals all started to melt after this water change, but from an observable perspective, the palys as the cause seems most realistic to me. I also rectified the issue before making this announcement, and things have been going extremely well since. This thread is merely a friendly warning to say “hey, be a little careful with wild palys”

 

[jcolliii]

You talking about the big green ones, or the purple death/green death type ones? Those ugly brownish ones were actually sold in reef stores when I started in corals. No one knew this stuff back then.

 

[Sharkbait19]

They’re captain jerks, so really just ugly brown palys with a hint of green at the center.

 

[ZoWhat]

15yrs in the hobby. Zoa/paly dominate for the last 7 in a 6ft 180g packed

I think y'all are looking for the wrong killer OJ Simpson....

I personally have never seen my palys kill any other coral