I heard you speak at MACNA today Christine and took your advice about posting about my personal encounter with the dangers in our tanks,

About ten years ago I was propagating vast quantities of xenia to support my aquarium addiction. I believe it was xenia elongota but I"m not strong on taxonomy.

One day while fragging several colonies I had an itch on the left side of my mouth. As humans usually do, I scratched the itch with my left (clean) hand. Didn't use my right hand because there was xenia slime all over that hand. Turns out there was xenia slime on the left hand as well. As anyone who has dealt with xenia knows, it smells horrible. I can attest to the fact it tasts even worse than it smells. After spitting out the slime and rinsing my mouth I proceeded with my fragging. My lip began to tingle and became numb, it was similar to the effect of novocain at the dentists. After about a half hour the entire left side of my mouth was numb and it was all I could do to keep from drooling. I decided to collect as many reef books as possible (My assumption was no Dr in the midwest would have any idea about coral reef poisoning.) and get to the ER. By the time I collected the information the numbness had begun to subside and a half hour later everything was back to normal. Well except for the fact I had developed a healthy respect for the dangerous toxins in my tanks.