Mini maxi nem ate sailfin tang?

I can't beleive this. Got home from work and check the tank out as usual. Notice my mini maxi nem has my sailfin in his mouth! The sailfin looked perfectly fine yesterday. I don't know how this happened.

 

Unfortunately, it's not all that uncommon for fish to get too close to nems. Maxi-minis definitely pack a good sting and are pretty sticky. I guess there is no way around it, nems are always risky in a reef. Sorry for your loss

 

Dang dbo! That sucks!!! My girlfriend had a sailfin that just died all of the sudden one day like that. No nem in the tank though

 

Ya it sucks dude. Never thought a little nem like that could take out a half grown sailfin tang.

 

At least you know you have a healthy maxi
Could the tank have been dead before it stuck to the nem?

 

I guess that's a good way to look at it.

I highly doubt it. Fed him a sheet of algae yest and saw no problems what so ever. Poor dude was in the wrong place at the wrong time apparently.

 

That is crazy. And I was about to purchase one too.

 

What's weird is if that fish brushed it, it should have swam off. I have a small s hadonni and have had fish brush with it and swim off. It seems like it would have to swim into it.

 

It's not uncommon for Sailfins to get stressed and place themselves in the wrong place even if it can avoid it. How big was the tang? How big is your tank? Sailfin's need a lot of swimming space they are probably one of the most demanding when it comes to this. I lost one about 6 months back it was doing great for 3 years then one day decided to swim into a pump and even though it could swim away choose to allow the pump to suck it in. When I found it and removed it from the screen of the pump it swam right back over to it and re-attached itself.

 

I am sorry for your loss, I swear sometimes I am baffled by the behavior of the fish.
I had something similar happen to me, I was feeding my corals and I have a maxi-mini as well and normally the cleaner shrimp will try and steal food from the corals, until the other day he messed with the wrong thing, I think he tried to steal the food from the mini and got stuck on it.... enough said... cleaner shrimp- 0 maxi 1