Limpets spawning

So I just saw an interesting occurrence in my tank. I have quite a few limpets that I got as hitchhikers on my LR a while back.

I saw what looked like small puffs of "smoke" coming out of the top of one of them. The shell had opened up a bit, and he would kind of jump and eject the substance. I thought he was pooping, but then I saw the same thing at the back of the tank, and there was another limpet ejecting the same substance a few seconds after the first one. Not sure which is the male or female, but I could only get some pics of the one to the front of the tank. I doubt the eggs will hatch as they'll probably get skimmed. Kind of neat.

Sorry for the bad pic, had to be quick to get the puffs. The limpet is hitching a ride on my turbo :

 

that is rad

 

WOW!! That's the stuff that makes this hobby worth every penny! Great shot. Limpet smoke!

Reminds me of a night dive once. My buddy scared up a spiny lobster and it made the usual backwards scoot with the tail about 12" off the bottom, moving horizontally at breakneck speed like it had just robbed a bank. It was coming right at me, when a hog snapper set a pic! The lobster slammed right into the hog-- and in my flashlight beam, I could see a scale or two off the fish come unattached.

I remember thinking to myself, "Wow. I've got to be one of a mere handful of people to ever see something like that."

 

i used to think they were hard to breed. during this time I would notice white film stuff on the glass from time to time didn't think about it and wiped it off. Now I leave it alone and have little limpets in the tank. you can see the white blobs progress and metamorph into a limpet with almost daily changes, but they are small changes and hopefully the fish stay away.

 

ive noticed some of my snails send of this white puff of smoke too. always wondered what it was.

 

That's pretty awesome! It would have been cool to have an underwater camera and to have gotten a pic of that


You're right, it's stuff like this which makes the hobby worth every penny. Even though reef keeping is fairly widespread, still, most people don't get to watch corals spread and grow on a daily basis, and basically watch a small slice of the ocean in their living room

Now, to see if any of the eggs hatch ... hopefully the skimmer didn't catch everything - maybe I'll have baby limpets soon.

 

i know ive got at least a dozen "babies" sliming around. hopefully its from my bigger ones propogating. im so proud. lol