Anyone have a clown eat another fish

Clownfish the predator? Not likely. Clownfish eat zooplankton but don't eat grown fish, dead or alive. More likely would be that the new fish died and then was consumed by the cleanup crew. The cleanup crew that consumes dead fish is not just Hermit Crabs. It's a host of worms, the most common being the [lovable] Bristleworm and a whole lot of bugs, the most common and largest bug being the Amphipod. Surprisingly, these organisms also eat the fish bones, usually in one night.  The cleanup crew is a normal part of the natural ocean environment - it's part of the circle of life and usually exists, though visible only at night, in a healthy reef aquarium.

Edited by Mark Peterson - June 15 2016 at 12:19am

The clowns belly is swollen and I swear I see the goby's eye in there.

Almost identical. Lol

In my 120, I used to feed my triggers guppies and live ghost shrimp.  Anthias, Clowns, everything would gobble them all up. If it can fit in the fishes mouth, they could eat it.

Edited by love2skiutah - June 15 2016 at 12:44pm

Yeah, I agree.  I doubt the clownfish ate it.  In my situation, they learned to do it from the other fish, because they didn't touch the guppies in the beginning.  A goby that small could pass away at noon and between it rotting and other fish/inverts moving it around and feasting on it, you could have zero trace of the goby by the time you got home from work. 

Here's the tank.

We don't know what bad habits the Clownfish picked up before it came to this tank, so predation is still a remote possibility, but my guess (my hope) is that the Goby is hiding or was a meal for the cleanup crew. I am leaning toward this explanation especially because of the interruption when Nemo had grabbed hold of the Goby's tail. Intervention is an effective teaching method and Nemos are good students. Also, as related, the clownfish could fit only the Goby's tail in it's mouth. In my opinion, a 3" clownfish throat is not large enough to swallow and does not have a stomach that is large enough to hold a Yellow Watchman Goby of the size usually found for sale in the hobby.