Smelly Zoas - Palytoxin?

Steph72 · Sep 26, 2020

I just picked up a zoa colony today from a trusted local coral shop and when I opened the bag it smelled like rotten sewage. They are vibrant and look perfectly healthy. I definitely would have noticed the odor if it was the water in their frag tank. The water in the bag turned cloudy by the time I got home. It’s only a ten minute drive and I didn’t stop anywhere else. I’m paranoid about stuff like this so I donned my PPE...N95, gloves, and proceeded to acclimate and dip them in a ventilated upstairs bathroom, being sure to keep them submerged. I have them in a bucket of tank water now and plan to leave them upstairs for tonight. I know about the risk of palytoxin but haven’t heard anything about an odor. I’m not putting them in my tank yet and plan to call the store to discuss it but I’m a little nervous about them in the meantime. I’m tempted to move them outside but I live in a very hot climate. Has anyone else experienced this?

PicassoClown04 · Sep 26, 2020

Steph72 said:
I just picked up a zoa colony today from a trusted local coral shop and when I opened the bag it smelled like rotten sewage. They are vibrant and look perfectly healthy. I definitely would have noticed the odor if it was the water in their frag tank. The water in the bag turned cloudy by the time I got home. It’s only a ten minute drive and I didn’t stop anywhere else. I’m paranoid about stuff like this so I donned my PPE...N95, gloves, and proceeded to acclimate and dip them in a ventilated upstairs bathroom, being sure to keep them submerged. I have them in a bucket of tank water now and plan to leave them upstairs for tonight. I know about the risk of palytoxin but haven’t heard anything about an odor. I’m not putting them in my tank yet and plan to call the store to discuss it but I’m a little nervous about them in the meantime. I’m tempted to move them outside but I live in a very hot climate. Has anyone else experienced this?

Hi! Very very weird for that to happen. What zoas were they? (Like zoas, palys, grandis). I live in Texas and all the fish stores are at least 20 mins away from me and I have never ever had a bag go cloudy on me like that. Were they in direct sunlight or something? I would do a coral dip then put in observation tank/bucket for a couple of days, but I don’t think that’s palytoxin.

I frag lots of zoas all the time (including ones notorious for palytoxin) and leave all the loose polyps in a urine cup for about 10 minutes while I prep the plugs and return the mother colony to the tank. The water has never become cloudy even though these zoas should be very stressed from the fragging process.

Sounds to me like your LFS has bad water or something, this is not normal. Even shipped zoas have never become cloudy for me