"I don't think I can keep Zoas and Palys." There I said it.
To preface, I grew up keeping Reef tanks, I then completed a degree in marine biology, before working in the aquarium trade and eventually entering the research world. I've dipped in and out of marine biology research but must confess it is far from my specialism.
Time passed I got married, had kids and gave up any hope of every having a reef tank again, been content with fresh water tanks. Now the opportunity arises again for me to resurrect my true interest and set down the road in owning a reef tank again.
The people on forums like this, the true hobbyists are the ones that hold all the cards regarding beautifully aquascaped reef tanks. No amount of research will help you in this hobby unless you soak up the knowledge of people who have been doing this themselves for years.
All this said, with my background one thing continues to nag at me, Palytoxin. Far too many pieces of the jigsaw are missing, far too much anecdotal evidence surrounds it and only a handful of true scientific studies exist on it; none of which truly relate to it within our hobby.
What do we truly Know?
It has an LD50 <1um/kg
Not all species of zoas/palys contain it
So what's nagging me?
I used to keep zoas and palys back in the day, we imported them where I worked and I used to deal with them bare handed; I bite my nails and so always had cuts. I took no care whatsoever with them. Did I get poisoned ever and just put it down to 'been a bit ill' ?- I don't think so.
If I was to speculate I would look at what was available back then, we selected corals to buy based on scientific names and sold them as that name (full species, genus), assuming their documentation was correct we knew where they had come from. We didn't have all these crazy beautiful 'zoas' I see today with names that mean nothing to me (Fire and ice, sunny delight, toxic greens etc..). There seems to be no distinction between paly and zoa species now and the name is interchangeable.
Fragging is now a lot more mainstream than back then. I speculate that 20 years ago even if the more deadly palys or zoa did make it into the trade on live rock (which I believe was harder due to the trade lists and general smaller species sets available to us) that is where they stayed. They weren't spread around the hobby and resold as frags. I even believe our thirst for new zoas will have resulted in people fragging mutations from boring brown colonies could have accidentally selected for some zoas high in palytoxin.
Of course all this is speculation, it could just be as simple as poisonings were unreported more 'back in the day'.
It just feels that along with an already hard to identify genus based on morphology add in the general amalgamation of the names zoa/paly and the propogation of mutations for the trade of already unknown genus, family, order and we have a potential game of Russian roulette regarding the concentration of palytoxin in a specific organism.
But if you follow good procedure you will be safe
I did believe this and still do to an extent until I started looking at modes of poisoning as recorded from cases requiring hostpitalisation (first hand sources from medical journals and accounts from people who have been poisoned)
I believed that palytoxin was an anti predatory mechanism. i.e damage the tissue of a colony and the toxin is released. I would rest easy if I still believed this. If this was the case one could avoid poisoning by simply not damaging them, or if we were to (e.g fragging) make appropriate preparation and take appropriate precautions when doing so (the usual suggested stuff gloves, eye protection, no cuts exposed).
That the toxin can be aerosolised is not unusual and again if preparation is made the dangers of this can be minimised.
What has been the game changer for me is that in numerous more recent accounts it is starting to look like palytoxin can be deliberately secreted by polyps. This, especially combined with the fact that it can be aerosolised and that it has a relatively long half life, in my opinion turns a potentially nasty organism into an unpredictable potential killer.
I know from my work how easy it is to accidentally combine bacteria into an aerosol. In an aquarium environment I cannot see how you can control molecules of palytoxin (if available) becoming aerosols, effectively. We have skimmers, powerheads, daily evaporation, open top tanks to aid it, to name but a few methods by which this could happen.
So?
These are just my thoughts about zoas/palys in the state of the hobby at the moment. If you search the internet and try and stick to actual credible scientific papers regarding palytoxin you can read the evidence I have refered to above. You may well interpret it very differently to me.
However with 2 small children I regret that I feel I cannot justify having anything remotely morphologically similar to zoas/palys in my tank until more research is forthcoming on this topic. For me the lines of species classification and solid evidence regarding the action of palytoxin within enclosed reef tanks and the aquarium keeping hobby has become too blurred.
Recent estimates show around 30% of zoas/palys tested in the aquarium trade show high concentrations of palytoxin (more than enough to kill someone), if this is not just a tissue confined poison, I admit it has me worried.
What can be done to easy my concerns?
More research into palytoxin WITHIN the aquarium trade
Proper labelling of species, genus of corals for sale (I think we are too far past this)
Testing of species entering the aquarium trade for palytoxin is not massively hard or too expensive. A program by where imported colonies are tested at, for example a university and recorded when they enter the trade, before been fragged would be beneficial for the trade and universities research programs. I would be prepared to pay more for certification of the true name and its toxicity when I bought a coral or frag. Especially if it gave me piece of mind in what I was adding to my tank. - This would not need to be mandatory just an option for shops a bit like 'pedigree linage' in say dogs.
A start would even be a record, on sites like this, of the morphology with pictures or corals they frag on a regular basis. Along with a record of any that have resulted in mild paly toxin symptons. Where the corals were obtained and how the transmission of poison occurred. I suspect only a small group contain high levels of toxin but, are we selecting for these because there is a particularly pretty form of zoa? (The only ones I have seen described and pictured in scientific papers, that are definitely poisonous, are dull brown/green specimens)
Anyhow enough ramblings, and now to call upon peoples experience as reef keepers and aquarists not scientists. What can you recommend for someone entering the hobby again after a 20 year break that will fill the place in a mainly softie tank to replace my beloved Zoas/palys, other than GSP mushrooms and xenia?
Cheers all
To preface, I grew up keeping Reef tanks, I then completed a degree in marine biology, before working in the aquarium trade and eventually entering the research world. I've dipped in and out of marine biology research but must confess it is far from my specialism.
Time passed I got married, had kids and gave up any hope of every having a reef tank again, been content with fresh water tanks. Now the opportunity arises again for me to resurrect my true interest and set down the road in owning a reef tank again.
The people on forums like this, the true hobbyists are the ones that hold all the cards regarding beautifully aquascaped reef tanks. No amount of research will help you in this hobby unless you soak up the knowledge of people who have been doing this themselves for years.
All this said, with my background one thing continues to nag at me, Palytoxin. Far too many pieces of the jigsaw are missing, far too much anecdotal evidence surrounds it and only a handful of true scientific studies exist on it; none of which truly relate to it within our hobby.
What do we truly Know?
It has an LD50 <1um/kg
Not all species of zoas/palys contain it
So what's nagging me?
I used to keep zoas and palys back in the day, we imported them where I worked and I used to deal with them bare handed; I bite my nails and so always had cuts. I took no care whatsoever with them. Did I get poisoned ever and just put it down to 'been a bit ill' ?- I don't think so.
If I was to speculate I would look at what was available back then, we selected corals to buy based on scientific names and sold them as that name (full species, genus), assuming their documentation was correct we knew where they had come from. We didn't have all these crazy beautiful 'zoas' I see today with names that mean nothing to me (Fire and ice, sunny delight, toxic greens etc..). There seems to be no distinction between paly and zoa species now and the name is interchangeable.
Fragging is now a lot more mainstream than back then. I speculate that 20 years ago even if the more deadly palys or zoa did make it into the trade on live rock (which I believe was harder due to the trade lists and general smaller species sets available to us) that is where they stayed. They weren't spread around the hobby and resold as frags. I even believe our thirst for new zoas will have resulted in people fragging mutations from boring brown colonies could have accidentally selected for some zoas high in palytoxin.
Of course all this is speculation, it could just be as simple as poisonings were unreported more 'back in the day'.
It just feels that along with an already hard to identify genus based on morphology add in the general amalgamation of the names zoa/paly and the propogation of mutations for the trade of already unknown genus, family, order and we have a potential game of Russian roulette regarding the concentration of palytoxin in a specific organism.
But if you follow good procedure you will be safe
I did believe this and still do to an extent until I started looking at modes of poisoning as recorded from cases requiring hostpitalisation (first hand sources from medical journals and accounts from people who have been poisoned)
I believed that palytoxin was an anti predatory mechanism. i.e damage the tissue of a colony and the toxin is released. I would rest easy if I still believed this. If this was the case one could avoid poisoning by simply not damaging them, or if we were to (e.g fragging) make appropriate preparation and take appropriate precautions when doing so (the usual suggested stuff gloves, eye protection, no cuts exposed).
That the toxin can be aerosolised is not unusual and again if preparation is made the dangers of this can be minimised.
What has been the game changer for me is that in numerous more recent accounts it is starting to look like palytoxin can be deliberately secreted by polyps. This, especially combined with the fact that it can be aerosolised and that it has a relatively long half life, in my opinion turns a potentially nasty organism into an unpredictable potential killer.
I know from my work how easy it is to accidentally combine bacteria into an aerosol. In an aquarium environment I cannot see how you can control molecules of palytoxin (if available) becoming aerosols, effectively. We have skimmers, powerheads, daily evaporation, open top tanks to aid it, to name but a few methods by which this could happen.
So?
These are just my thoughts about zoas/palys in the state of the hobby at the moment. If you search the internet and try and stick to actual credible scientific papers regarding palytoxin you can read the evidence I have refered to above. You may well interpret it very differently to me.
However with 2 small children I regret that I feel I cannot justify having anything remotely morphologically similar to zoas/palys in my tank until more research is forthcoming on this topic. For me the lines of species classification and solid evidence regarding the action of palytoxin within enclosed reef tanks and the aquarium keeping hobby has become too blurred.
Recent estimates show around 30% of zoas/palys tested in the aquarium trade show high concentrations of palytoxin (more than enough to kill someone), if this is not just a tissue confined poison, I admit it has me worried.
What can be done to easy my concerns?
More research into palytoxin WITHIN the aquarium trade
Proper labelling of species, genus of corals for sale (I think we are too far past this)
Testing of species entering the aquarium trade for palytoxin is not massively hard or too expensive. A program by where imported colonies are tested at, for example a university and recorded when they enter the trade, before been fragged would be beneficial for the trade and universities research programs. I would be prepared to pay more for certification of the true name and its toxicity when I bought a coral or frag. Especially if it gave me piece of mind in what I was adding to my tank. - This would not need to be mandatory just an option for shops a bit like 'pedigree linage' in say dogs.
A start would even be a record, on sites like this, of the morphology with pictures or corals they frag on a regular basis. Along with a record of any that have resulted in mild paly toxin symptons. Where the corals were obtained and how the transmission of poison occurred. I suspect only a small group contain high levels of toxin but, are we selecting for these because there is a particularly pretty form of zoa? (The only ones I have seen described and pictured in scientific papers, that are definitely poisonous, are dull brown/green specimens)
Anyhow enough ramblings, and now to call upon peoples experience as reef keepers and aquarists not scientists. What can you recommend for someone entering the hobby again after a 20 year break that will fill the place in a mainly softie tank to replace my beloved Zoas/palys, other than GSP mushrooms and xenia?
Cheers all
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