Extreme Palythoa and Zoanthid Removal

Removing Zoanthids and Palythoa from the rock can be difficult. Here's how I did it.

reefbuilders

Texas Man Dies from Apparent Exposure to Palytoxin

[annebartells]

Palys are hard to kill. A few years ago my light died. At the same time my husband had a heart attack and a stroke. Anyways, I didn't pay much attention to my tank and really didn't have desire to take care of it while my husband was healing. It was neglected for about a year. I started up my tank several months ago. The heater wasn't working, no light, no water changes. The only thing that survived was a damsel and a paly frag. Amazing the paly survived. My tank is doing great now and so is my husband

[Joker-gsse]

Great informative video Scott! When I first joined the hobby a few years ago, I was hesitant to even purchase zoas or palys but overtime I saw how calmly the employees at my lfs were when handling and bagging them, i realized most of the danger is when you are fragging and really messing with them. Anyone who has these in their reef should always keep fresh carbon in their tanks and if you plan to frag them, take all the necessary precautions. You can order full arm length gloves and goggles on Amazon for cheap. A mask isn’t a bad idea either. Full arm length gloves should be something we all have anyways so that we keep any oils or anything out of the reef. Good luck everyone, practice safety when working on corals and you’ll be fine. Happy reefing!

[RogueAquariums]

Glad you were able to take out the nuisance Palys as well as gearing up in regards to protecting yourself

[captivebredcanada]

Fun times. I was just removing a ton of pink palys from my frag tank. They actually infest several of my tanks. Even isolating them eventually they grow up the front glass, up the back glass ect. In my nano they even grew into the hob filter. On the eggcrate I can cut and pull them off underwater which is much safer for me but less safe for the frags. Limited myself to 50 or so polyps a day and after 5 days got the bulk of them gone. Seeing that tile saw brought back memories. I haven't used one in probably 10 years. I know they don't cut the same things but replaced it with one of those inland bandsaws just before they started making ones designed for corals, but still does the job.

[karennation]

i have some crazy neon green palys and yellow palys also mohawks. i cant remove rock because my tank is to small and they are on main rocks! Right where I wan to put torches in one tank. Will torches smother them out? The other 20 gallon maybe tweezers. Not quite as bad! Any other suggestions? I s there maybe something I can inject like peroxide?

[dlegarern]

Your PPE use is NOT overkill.

I would even consider a tyvec jumpsuit

I’ve had a near miss with palytoxin

Luckily I just had metallic taste and very slight tingling to fingertips.

Honestly is scared the crap out of me since I have no idea how I got poisoned.

I was removing hair algae from zoanthids and had to pull a few polyps using long tweezers.

I had gloves and long sleeve shirt face shield and mask.

[flintridgedesigninc.]

Now that you have them cut removed... How do you dispose of them?

[Nurse]

Fair play!! That was ballsy! But we'll done taking all the precautions you did inspiring!

[spicyreef]

I thought I was the only one using a wet saw, NICE!

[RobBoryckiGolf]

Awesome Scott. So I have a paly frag. Should I banish it to an island rock like gsp?

[Muskogeee]

I'm a beginner just starting to research saltwater aquariums so obviously I came across Palytoxin poisoning and it's a little scary. This may be a dumb question, but can't you just avoid the risk altogether by not buying or growing any Palys or Zoas? Do they somehow just grow on their own?

[moereefer]

This is the same palys in my tank the grow every where I hate them. Great job

[bensimpson]

people often say no one's died from palytoxin but many have died from the complications. this is the loosest video I've seen. I thought you were so game. they are one of my favourite corals and one if the reasons I got in to marine besides seeing reefing as a challenge. have you ever ripped zoas or palys off the rock with tweezers like that's and managed to frag them? I wouldn't be game to try it but they did appear to come off intact so now I am curious. I'm about to rip clean my tank and possibly remove all my zoas die to an outbreak of algae like you've never seen in your life.

[tizbrin]

can I use a aptasia laser? or joes juice/kalkwasser???

[Boostedth]

fruit loops and rastas are awesome zoas and aren't crazy prices

[cmidkiss]

Forget zoas. They are way too toxic. Plenty of other beautiful non toxic coral… be safe.

[BALDBIL]

Wow here you are trying to remove zoas and I can't keep them in my tank

[nosumpreefing]

Got rid of my Dinos by adding nitrifying bacteria in my tank

[zafishguy]

Those paly's are experts at surviving and you call them stupid. They must be sad that all their survival skills are called stupid. They might just overgrow a monti because you said that.