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Unread 03/07/2003, 05:52 PM   #9
Nagel
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: West Milford, NJ
Posts: 7,167
dellrio,

I think the point here is that they are PRETTY toxic. I'm not sure if you could be poisoned by touching the water, but its possible (polyps were torn / cut and they release mucuous to the water, and it could enter through a cut on your hand or arm).

I guess the gist is just be CAREFUL when working with them. As a safety precaution I am ordering those full length gloves and will be installing a door to my fishroom to keep MY dog out of there, god forbid he decides to chew on a random polyp I missed...... These things are toxic, and though there are no known human deaths that I can speak of, several people have published that they were poisoned by some pretty peculiar means (Anthony Calfo got hit when he wiped his mouth with a fishroom towel that had been used whil he was fragging earlier in the day). Not exactly one of the ways I would have been wary of, but it shows that there are a few ways to become poisoned by it.....

I also did a search on google for "palytoxin" and had to look at the cached sites to see the data, but here are some quotes:

"Solubility : Very soluble in water. "

"Palytoxins are stable in seawater and lower alcohols"

"Onset of Symptoms : Rapid, with death occurring within minutes "

"Palytoxin acts at the cell membranes to make them permeable to cations - positively charged ions, typically sodium, potassium, and calcium. Many functions of cells depend upon controlling the flow of these ions in and out of the cell, so disrupting this traffic is very dangerous.

At the physiological level, the most sensitive target is the myocardium, or muscular component of the heart, and the primary effect is vasoconstriction or rapid narrowing of blood vessels in the heart and in the lungs. Another effect is hemolysis, or the destruction of the red blood cells. These three effects taken together cut off the oxygen supply and the victim suffocates. "

"Palytoxin was first isolated from the soft coral Palythoa toxica. Several species of Palythoa are used in aquariums, but do not produce the toxin. Originally, it was only found in a single tidal pool on the island of Maui in Hawaii and native Hawaiians used to coat spear points with a red seaweed from the pool. Toxin-containing corals appear to be randomly and sparingly distributed throughout the South Pacific and there is now a school of thought that suggests that the coral is simply concentrating the toxin made by a dinoflagellate (a small single-celled organism) called Ostreopis siamensis. "

just food for thought....


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Last edited by Nagel; 03/07/2003 at 06:32 PM.
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