Ok so is Pulsing Xenia toxic or not????? can someone PLEASE REPLY.....
why is this story going around the world and no one is correcting the story?
No. Here is a source (Pelin et al. (2016) Marine Drugs 14(2)):
"Among the different species of decorative soft corals, such as Sarcophyton, Sinularia, Nephthya, Cladiella, Xenia, Palythoa, and Zoanthus species [76,77], those belonging to the last two genera are widely used due to their colorful and ornamental features [55,78]. The latter are known to accumulate PLTX [2,54] and/or its analogs, such as 42S-OH-50S-PLTX isolated from P. toxica [14], 42S-OH-50R-PLTX identified in P. tuberculosa [15], and deoxy-PLTX isolated from P. heliodiscus [55]."
"At the beginning of 1960s, Prof. Helfrich discovered the exact location of this place, as well as the “toxic algae”, found to be a soft coral belonging to the genus Palythoa (P. toxica). Thus, the toxin identified in this zoanthid ten years later by Prof. Scheuer was called palytoxin [1]....
...the interconnections between PLTX and soft corals have progressively lost their strength since the toxin and a series of its analogs have been subsequently identified in other marine organisms, phylogenetically very different from cnidaria, such as dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, and edible vertebrates and invertebrates...
...To explain PLTX’s presence in phylogenetically-different species, some authors proposed bacteria as producing organisms and a possible common source of these toxins. With this respect, Frolova et al. [8], using anti-PLTX antibodies, detected PLTX-like compounds in Gram-negative Aeromonas sp. and Vibrio sp. bacteria. Similarly, bacteria isolated from Palythoa caribaeorum were found to display a PLTX-like hemolytic activity [9]. In addition, PLTX and 42-hydroxy-PLTX were isolated from marine Trichodesmium spp. cyanobacteria [10].
However, a clear definition of the actual producing organism of PLTX is still a matter of debate."
To be clear, there is no known occurrence in the scientific literature of palytoxins, within soft coral, outside of the zoanthus and palythoa genera.
However it has been speculated by others in the peer review literature that, due to the closed nature of aquaria, it may be possible that once palytoxins are produced, it can be spread and bioaccumulate in the tissue of corals that would otherwise not produce palytoxin. This is analagous to how fish have been known to accumulate palytoxin.
The article didn't describe their reef. Even if they had zoanthids, most aquarists are actually poisoned by Dinos according to toxicology reports.
