What are my corals doing??

[Cat]

A couple of weeks ago I bought the first two corals for my reef tank it had been running for about three weeks and all my levels were at zero. I bought a finger leather and a xenia, the finger in the LFS just looked like small smooth stumpy fingers and was a pink colour. I took it home and put it in my tank and on about the second day it looked like it had cobwebs all over it and all my blue legged hermits were making pilgrimages up to it. The following day all the cobwebby stuff that it had sent out dissipeared and all the fingers got a lot longer and where the surface was smoth before it was covered in little bump things (sorry I dont know the technical name) and it has stayed thay way since and looks how I beleive it should do. Now on Saturday I bought a sandy brown coloured leather, 2 feather dusters and a metalic green mushroom. in the store the leather was covered in little bumpy nodule thingys and they disapeared when it was bagged, after being in my tank an hour or so they all reapeared. but yesterday at was smooth again and started to look cobwebby as well Why are they doing this and are they all okay?
Also I was very concerned this morning as when I turned on the lighting before going to work, they water looked hazy and I I noticed what looked like a pume of smoke coming out of one of the feather dusters?
Please tell me if all this is normall behavior

 

[OrionGirl]

Th ebumps are most likley the polyp buds. Most corals have polyps--some are long, some are short. The polyps can be retracted as a protective measure, but come out to feed. The cobwebs are probably shedding--corals that are disturbed or traumatized will frequenty slough off their outer layer of cells. It's not a huge problem when first purchased, but you'll want to make sure it isn't happening each week.

The 'smoke'--not abnormal. Depending, it was most likely waste. If the duster recently dropped a crown, it could be eggs/sperm--that's how they reproduce.

 

[Cat]

Okay sounds good, is just seems to have been from the initial rehousing each time.
what do you mean 'crown'?
Also you mentioned reproducing, do feather dusters reproduce easily in captivity?
Can any of this 'waste' be harmfull to fish as I also introduced my first fish at the weekend, 2 tank raised common clowns and a bi-colour blennie. All seem to be fine at the mo.

 

[OrionGirl]

The feathered part is called the crown. They drop it when they are about to reproduce (or severaly stressed) to they don't catch and consume their own eggs/sperm. It's not unheard of for them to reproduce in an aquarium, but the planktonic juveniles are quickly consumed in a tank and seldom survive. Their waste is much like the waste produced by all the animals in the tank--part of the bio-load, and processed by bacteria.