fake plants

[brokentoys]

Hello everyone. Thanks in large part to this site, my 29 gallon FO tank has been successfully up and running since June. Thanks to everyone I spied on over the course of the last few months. Everything had been going great up untill today.
My tiny niger trigger was fine ( he will eventually be moving to a new home) but my dwarf lion was found dead entangled in a couple of fake plants located in the center of the tank. One of the long stringy leafs had been sucked into one of the lions gills. The lion seemed extremely healthy and had successfully navigated the plants for 3 months. My questions are:
Are fake plants dangerous to certain types of fish?
Has anyone heard of anything like this happening?.
Thanks again to everyone.

 

[cincyreefer]

No, fake plants are no more dangerous than real ones. No I have never heard of anything like this.
Did you actually have to pull the plant out of its gills, or were they just entangled?

 

[brokentoys]

The dwarf was pretty tangled up, and yes, I pulled about half an inch of fake leaf out of his left gill.

 

[cincyreefer]

I am glad you didn't get stung!
I can honestly say that I would never have even thought about that happening, but I guess it is a possibility. My guess still remains that it somehow died near the plant, got pushed into it by a current or something, then maybe the trigger started to pick on it making it get entangled. The reason why i dont think the plant killed the lion is because they dont suck water through their gills strong enough to suck a plant in. But like I said, i guess it could be possible. Sorry to hear about the lion though.