

World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you - dailo10
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/05/world%E2%80%99s-2nd-deadliest-poison-in-an-aquarium-store-near-you/

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nl
Marginally related, the case of Karen Wetterhahn:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn>

_Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her
lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her
protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of
dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests
later showed that this can rapidly permeate different kinds of latex gloves
and enter the skin within about 15 seconds_

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Zaak
IIRC it took like six months to kill her though.

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nl
It's slow acting, but close to 100% lethal, and you don't die nicely.

IMHO, that's just about the most horrible combination imaginable.

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birken
I worked at an aquarium store (probably one of the ones mentioned in the
story) for a long time, and was a pretty experienced and dedicated reefkeeper
at my peak, and I never knew this.

This situation must be incredibly unlikely though because I've dealt with
thousands of Zooanthids and hundreds of customers over the years I never had
anything like this happen nor heard about it from anybody. However, I
certainly wish I had known so I could have warned customers about the risks,
because in the aquarium world Zooanthids are considered a great starter coral
because they are very hardy and don't require much light.

~~~
RK
The advice I always see online about handling zoanthids is "always wear
gloves". I've always done so, but seen plenty of people who don't.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other (often hidden) things in your
average reef aquarium that can potentially injure you and leave your local
emergency department at a loss. People don't normally get stung by fireworms
(or whatever) 5000 miles away from the tropical ocean.

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flipbrad
From the Wikipedia article [1]: "each gram of the offending zoanthid contained
enough venom to kill at least 125 grown men"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia>

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nikcub
second deadlist in the _natural_ world, not overall.

a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well',
went to a hospital, _made it_ to the hospital, and survived

the real deadly biological systems don't even give you a chance to ask if that
is a missile coming over the hill

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jerf
"a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well',
went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived"

I am not sure what point you are trying to make with that sentence. That this
proves it's not very toxic? We know how toxic it is. The LD-50 has been
determined with some precision. What this would therefore prove was that his
dose was low, which considering the suboptimal delivery method isn't that
surprising.

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latch
OT: This led me to the LD-50 wiki page
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose#Examples>

Was very interesting to see Botox requiring 2300x a smaller dose than VX.

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pcanella
Saltwater aquarium owner here-- I own many palytoxin soft corals and have
never felt any danger whatsoever; however that doesn't mean you shouldn't be
careful with these guys (zoanthids, palythoa, etc). I've never cut them open
or anything, so I'm safe I think :)

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bluekeybox
You may be interested in this guy's comment
([http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gj74k/man_cleans_fi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gj74k/man_cleans_fishtank_ends_up_poisoned_and_develops/c1nyfn6)):
"I was changing out my water and as being the usual idiot I am, I didn't
condition or warm the water before dumping in 5 gallons of cold water into the
tank. The zoos didn't like that and started squirting a long thin streamer of
black tar stuff. I scooped it out _with my hands_ to throw it away, a few
minutes later I felt light headed and about 5 or so minutes later is when it
kicked in full force."

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pcanella
WOW, I've never seen anything like that happen in my tank. I actually have
moved them and got slimey stuff on my hands from them (as with all corals) and
just washed my hands really well afterward. Irritating them is REALLY
difficult to do though, they'll live through anything. Absolute beauties
though, and well worth keeping :)

~~~
bluekeybox
Not a saltwater aquarium owner myself, but given stories like this, I
personally would not want to wear anything short of a spacesuit when the time
comes to clean the tank.

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muyuu
No biggie. If you get a shot in your heart timely, you'd be fine.

"If delivered immediately, vasodilators injected into the ventricle of the
heart can act as an antidote."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia>

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ojbyrne
So it seems like there's an obvious omission in this story... what's the
deadliest poison?

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jedsmith
Botulinum, I'd guess (among _natural_ toxins). A casual Google seems to
indicate I'm right.

~~~
sliverstorm
Yup. 10x more toxic than palytoxin.

And we inject it in ourselves voluntarily.

Humans are such funny creatures.

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delackner
There is a poisonous dosage of ALL chemicals. H2O among them. The question is,
is there a dosage of botulism that has a therapeutic effect?

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ojbyrne
Botulinum toxin type A is known as "Botox." It has some therapeutic uses, but
mostly cosmetic ones.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin>

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srean
To get a scale of things I just had to find out what the weight of a typical
grain of salt is.
[http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/How_much_does_a_grain_of_salt_...](http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/How_much_does_a_grain_of_salt_weigh)

If one goes by the minimum value which is 0.05mg, an equivalent amount of this
stuff can kill 2,500 human sized mice with 50% probability. That's potent
stuff.

Well, had written 'people' in place of 'human sized mice' but the LD-50 values
used were those for mice, so it is only fair that I measure in "human sized
mice" units.

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AndrewDucker
Also, massive mice.

Should we be keeping this stuff about in case of a Dire-Mouse invasion?

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cma
In other news, post security-check airport janitorial closets and bathrooms
contain tons of unguarded ammonia and bleach containers all over the place.

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rdtsc
But, do they contain aquariums? That is the real question ;-)

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cma
Guilty of not reading the article; I thought it was going to be about cyanide
(sold for for killing algea in aquariums) being readily available for
terrorist misuse (probably from reading about the 80's Tylenol/cyanide
scandals).

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burgerbrain
Fear mongering much?

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denysonique
Hmm, I think someone should update this page...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia#Dangers>

_In order for this toxin to be dangerous to humans, the average aquarist would
need to ingest the zoanthid in sufficient quantities, or brush a recent cut
over it. Average handling, propagation and aquarium maintenance is unlikely to
pose any danger beyond a localized skin reaction.[citation needed] A 2010
study found toxic zoanthids in three Washington D.C. area aquarium stores.[7]_

