Can an anemone eat a clown?

ReefLove25

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Everything I've ever read says that anemones simply cannot eat clownfish, but two nights ago I added a condy to my tank and today I awoke to one of my goldstripe maroon clowns missing. I have looked up and down front and back in my tank and she is absolutely nowhere. Unless she's under one of the base rocks in my tank, but in that case I would highly doubt she's alive. I took apart the top layers of my live rock, nothing. The condy I added is larger than she is but not anything insanely huge. I added it because my two clowns would constantly fight over the bubbletip anemone in my tank. Now, the larger of the two clowns which actually happened to be a female (bought her as an adult) is missing. I can't make sense of it!


She was more than 4 inches already, a very big clown to simply go missing.


Tank perimeters:
temp: 78
specific gravity: 1.026
pH: 8.0
nitrate: >5ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
ammonia: 0ppm

Everything in my tank seems to be doing fine so I don't know why she would've passed if that was the case :(


Other fish in the tank:
less than 2 inch long dwarf fuzzy lion
2 chromis
1 potters angel
1 carpenters fairy wrasse
one small 2 inch panther grouper (am selling him, he's way too small to eat the clown as the clown was more than 2x his size, got him from a friend but only to hold temporarily until I found him a better home since the tank is only 70 gal)
 

AllSignsPointToFish

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Are condylactis known to ever do this???
Absolutely they are capable of it. Clowns are not generally paired with condylactus anemones. However, your clown was pretty large from your description.
 

FL_Reefer

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I personally have never seen it happen but all anemones can eat fish or what ever they can hold on to and get in their mouths. Have you looked in your overflow, sump and on the ground around the tank?
 
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ReefLove25

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I personally have never seen it happen but all anemones can eat fish or what ever they can hold on to and get in their mouths. Have you looked in your overflow, sump and on the ground around the tank?

I've looked absolutely everywhere except the bottom set of rocks in my tank because I wanted to avoid taking everything apart. I never planned to have anemone's in the first place but someone gave me the bubbletip for free. I've had the bubble for about 3 months now and wanted to add something else. Guess I should've looked into the condy's behavior with clowns before buying :(
 
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ReefLove25

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Do you have a cat or a dog? If so, the fish could've just jumped out of the tank and the dog/cat had a tasty fish sandwich.

no cats and only one dog who can't get to my room due to a gate. :( I do have 2 super aggressive emerald crabs in the tank but I highly doubt the clown could've died and had the emeralds eat up all the remains of a dead clown within the 8 hours as I slept.
 

Zoey

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I have heard of a few people having the same issue with a nem eating clowns. i just recently seen a video on facebook of it happening, too.
 
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ReefLove25

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You would be suprised at how fast clean up crew can eat up a fish.

She was really large in comparison to everything in the tank so that's the part that's really getting me! the only thing bigger than her was the condy.
 
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ReefLove25

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Condis will eat any thing it can grab....they are hunters not hosts


Normally after my bubbletip eats, he'll close up for awhile. The condy is wide open, if he had just consumed a large clown wouldn't he be working on digesting it?? Is there any signs of that?
 

Zoey

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How does the nem look right now? it is puffed up? or have you seen it poop recently? they normally have a poop after a good meal.
 
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ReefLove25

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IMG_8040.JPG
IMG_8044.JPG
 

Zoey

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Hmm to be honest i dont know if it looks like it has eaten. When did the clown go missing?
 
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ReefLove25

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There's a LFS by my house that'll buy off fish/corals/etc for half the price they'll sell them for, I'll probably bring the condy there. Even if he didn't kill the clown knowing what I know now I don't want to risk anything happening to my other fish
 

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