We look at ourselves every day in the mirror and sometimes think about how our faces and bodies changes as we age. Then we open old family photo albums shaking our heads in disbelief that we were once so young.

Those of us who have dogs or cats have the same feelings about their pets, remembering as they were those little cute puppies and now they are full-grown, sofa-destroying adults. Does the same apply to fish swimming in our reefs and freshwater tank?

I tended to think fish don’t change much as they age, basically just growing larger and getting more bruises and scars. Of course we need to exclude fish like Koran Angelfish, Red Coris Wrasses or Atlantic Blue Tangs which change their look dramatically as they become adults. But recently, I was organizing my photos and found a picture of my blenny that I shot right after I brought him home from the LFS, which was about one and a half years ago. “That can’t be true!” I thought and I compared this picture to the most recent I took of the same fish. Here’s those two stitched together:

It was such a baby! Look at the size of his eyes compared to rest of the body:

That caught my interest and I spent the rest of the day looking for pictures of my fish from different times. I found out that my clownfish also changed a lot, switching his face expression from silly to the more serious, angry one it has right now.

Digging even more into my photo archives, I managed to find discus pictures. When I introduced them to my tank more than 2 years ago, they were 2 inch-long teens, now they are 4 ½ inch adults in full grace.It’s little bit scary when we stop and think about how the ruthless clock of life leaves its marks on everything and everyone surrounding us, don’t you think?