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JennaSimpson

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
May 16, 2011
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196
Location
Lafayette, La
I'm curious as to what the hairy growth on my rock is, it's plant like and short not slimy. Also I have dark and bright red moss?purple? And a turquoise green on my rock? Also recently these hard tubes have been popping up everywhere? And are tiny white snail looking things on the glass bad?
 

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This is a better picture of the "hairies" and the white "snails"
 

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Another question ! Sorry ! My clowns are always together? Do they do this in the wild as same sex or are they a pair? I can't tell..
 

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Ok, lemme try to tackle these... The hairy growth, I'm not 100% sure on, but I have some myself. It pops up around my torch coral, on the back side of a rock, and a few other places. It seems to be related to tunicates somehow. The largest mass of it is where a tunicate died. But I can't be sure of the connection. It looks like a calcareous growth, to me. Perhaps someone else can chime in on this.
The snail like things on the glass, assuming these are stationary, white, and sometimes have little tufts coming out, are very likely spibiroid worms: perfectly harmless filter feeders. Just scrape them off if they annoy you or obstruct the view.
Your clowns may have started off as a same sex pair, but are very likely not anymore. In clownfish, the largest and most dominant becomes female, which is an irreversible transformation. If she dies, the second largest will assert dominance and then become female.
 
Actually, there are quite a few fish families that regularly change gender. Clownfish go from Male to female, many wrasses go from Female to male, and Anthias go from female to male.
Though much less common, some freshwater fish do the same. I had a mosquitofish go from male to female recently. Can't find any other documented cases of that particular fish doing it, so I was pretty excited.
 
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