Odd creatures

I have 2 very large feather dusters in my tank and recently they both crawled out of their tubes and were swimming around. I thought maybe something was wrong but they both crawled back to their tubes after about 2 days. I thought this was very odd but I remembered that they can crawl out if they are spawning. This was about 2 weeks ago. Now I can see at least 2 dozen small things growing all over the tank that are clear, about 1/4" tall and look like miniature feathers. One is even on a snail shell. When I shine a flashlight on them they snap back into their clear tube just like a feather. For any feather experts out there, do these sound like baby feathers to you? As I said, they are transparent, about 1/4" tall and they retract back into their tubes if I shine a light on them.
Any help would be great, thanx :)
 
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