what are these?

[GlitcH]

I just got some plants in yesterday.....washed them and put them in my still cycling tank......this morining I noticed hundreds if not thousands of these...

What the heck are they?

 

[lovemybarbs]

Possibly baby shrimp. How long have you had your shrimp?

 

[GlitcH]

Don't have shrimp in that tank..........I think whatever these are came from my plant shipment yesterday.

 

[Jchillin]

looks like a hydroid to me...

 

[Jchillin]

http://seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=hydroids

 

[GlitcH]

nope dont think so........they seem to swim like shrimp.....they can swim pretty fast whenthey want to.

They are so small I couldn't see them well without the macro on the camera.

 

[Jchillin]

Sorry you don't agree but IMO, they cannot be anything else. They are microscopic in appearance and from your description of having hundreds, fits the bill entirely.

 

[lovemybarbs]

here's a photo of a baby ghost shrimp.

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/photos/crustaceans/shrimp/shrimplet.jpg

 

[kaz]

they look like small sea monkeys/brine shrimp

 

[Jchillin]

Here's a better hydroid pic.

http://www.imagequest3d.com/catalogue/macromarine/pages/r047.htm

 

[lovemybarbs]

But I think the top one has eyes and a fan tail. Glitch? Can you see little eyes?

 

[Jchillin]

Here is an even better pic...looks just like a ghost shrimp.

 

[lovemybarbs]

That looks like the bottom one. That's more like it. Shrimp don't have 100s at a time do they?

 

[newfound77951]

THey look like calanoid copepods to me....I've seen a lot of these guys in my oceanography work. Related to Daphnia

http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~eestprh/holopub/EtiveImages/47084B1.gif

Your fish will think they're yummy! No idea how they got in there but they shouldn't harm anything

 

[lovemybarbs]

and yet another reason why I will never get live plants. EWWWWWWWWW!

 

[GlitcH]

THey look like calanoid copepods to me....I've seen a lot of these guys in my oceanography work. Related to Daphnia

http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~eestprh/holopub/EtiveImages/47084B1.gif

Your fish will think they're yummy! No idea how they got in there but they shouldn't harm anything

Ya they defininately look like that..........hmm.......not harmful to the tank huh.

The tank is still cycling and they seem healthy.........is that strange or expected?

 

[Jchillin]

I stand corrected...on the right path though.

Here's a nice wikipedia page on them, which includes a vid of fish devouring them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepod

 

[GlitcH]

Thx jchillin for that source...........it was very informative.

Thx everyone for the brain storm

 

[toddnbecka]

When you add fish, they'll be nice live food.

 

[noncentric]

Hi Glitch, just wondering what was the source of your plants?