I still have this EOL CFL I'm debating on whether to put small LEDs inside the tube, I have a few questions. What would I need? What LEDs should I put in? Whats the best way to remove the tube without breaking it? What should I do if the tube breaks? How can I prevent myself from breaking the tube? What should I wear as protection from mercury?

I still have this EOL CFL I'm debating on whether to put small LEDs inside the tube, I have a few questions. What would I need? What LEDs should I put in? Whats the best way to remove the tube without breaking it? What should I do if the tube breaks? How can I prevent myself from breaking the tube? What should I wear as protection from mercury?

Iwouldn't be worried of the mercury that much, as that will be condensed solid in the amalgam pellet, but for the shattered glass and then general toxicity of everything inside (so best make sure you wont get in contact with anything and if so, wash properly). Using a face shield, gloves and maybe a dust mask is not bad idea at all.
But I see as very low chance to work with the tube to not brak it. It uses to just barely hold together (with a lot of internal stress) as it is, so any disturbance and it will likely shatter...

In those cases I see which part is EOL, it is not likely to be both EOL. If the tube is EOL the ballast is likely to still be ok, so I save the ballast for either use in other CFLs or recycle the few components. If the tube is still ok, the ballast is likely to be bad so I remove it untill I get a working ballast and I replace it, like how I did here.

Taking the tube apart doesn't worth, because it could break and you could expose to harmful substances. The mercury vapor is not complicated to deal with, after you open the tube you remove the amalgam and let it vent outside for 20 minutes, but the real problem comes with the phosphores (contaminated with a lot of mercury after a long life). If you leave the phosphores the LEDs will scratch against the walls and you can get exposed if you want to clean it, so it is better to not modify the tube.

If the tube is EOL you can deposit it in a recycling center or save it to play with plasma balls or high voltage generators.

@Medved: Even thought the mercury is in the amalgam it still releases vapors at room temperature, otherwise the tube would start slowly and pinkish, if the amalgam is far from the cathodes, so is better to get rid of the amalgam if the tube breaks for stop the mercury release.

@Medved: Even thought the mercury is in the amalgam it still releases vapors at room temperature, otherwise the tube would start slowly and pinkish, if the amalgam is far from the cathodes, so is better to get rid of the amalgam if the tube breaks for stop the mercury release.

But that is so low concentration it can not do much.
Mainly when compared to the other problems, mainly the phosphor dust already contaminated by the mercury compounds. Inhaling even small part of that could easily give way more Hg into your body than the mercury vapor from the amalgam on room temperature over decades. Plus the other components of the phosphor do not look safe either...

What components from halophosphor and triphosphore are dangerous by themselves? I know that early tubes contained berilium.

What components from halophosphor and triphosphore are dangerous by themselves? I know that early tubes contained berilium.

First their heavy contamination with mercury, but I guess the question was placed with hypothetical assumption they are not yet contaminated from the lamp operation.

First generic for all chemicals, include those that are not toxic by themself: Unless they are not certified as non toxic (food or cosmetic grade,...), there is no guarantee their production process wont leave there toxic contaminants (residues from other components of raw materials, catalysts used during production reactions, side reactions forming certain percentage of unintended compounds that could be toxic,...). An example is sodium hydroxide: It is safe and approved for food use (as pH regulator), but only when manufactured by using the membrane electrolysis. The other common method for NaOH production is using mercury electrode electrolysis. Although the main product is the same NaOH, obviously when produced using the mercury, it is almost guaranteed the product is contaminated by the mercury (or the contamination can not be excluded).
From this aspect whatever was in the flourescent, should be treated as containing mercury, so toxic just because of that.
And other aspect is, the composition of the main phosphor materials is quite broad, selected with the light output and generaly performance as lamp phosphors as the main objective so to me it is very unlikely all components are really safe.
The thing is, there are not only the main materials, but as well the dopants forming the different colors.
And if you take asbestos example, a material could be 100% chemically inert in the body (as the asbestos is), but its physical properties could make it extremely toxic anyway (the tiny needle crystals in the asbestos case).
So unless proven otherwise with the exact material, I always treat these as potentially dangerous.
If you prevent inhaling/ingestion of safe substsnce, nothing bad could happen, just a bit of inconvenience of using the PPE when mabe not needed.
But if you wont prevent a real toxic substance from entering your body, you could be in big, unrecoverable troubless very fast.
Plus all this is irrelevant in the case of fluorescent remains, asthere the phosphor dust definitely is contaminated by Hg, so it becomes toxic regardless the principal chemicals of the phosphor alone.

Halophosphates are based in Antimony and Manganese, and triphosphores are based in Europium and Terbium, which have a low toxicity (of course you don't want to eat it). So touching the dust should not result in problems (assuming that the dust is not contaminated with mercury yet, and the final yield is clean enough of the chemicals envolved in the production). If the lamp ran for a considerable time is better to keep far from the dust.