Tiny white dots

[dthomasi]

I got a shipment of shrimp today for my shrimp tank, and after watching for a while I noticed there were a bunch of very tiny white dots crawling around my java moss.

I'm assuming these hitch-hiked with the water and/or small amount of moss in the shipment, and am wondering what they could be. Is Ich ever free swimming? These dots mostly just crawl around on the moss then swim a little ways every once in a while.

I am fairly sure they are not planaria.

Thanks for any info.

 

[dthomasi]

*bump*

Any Ideas?

 

[guppy]

Ich does have a free swimming stage but it is so smallthat you cannot see them without magnification. The tomites (mobile stage) are only 30 microns long, this is just 0.00118103 inches in length, so if you do see them you have very good eyes, heheh.
Google cyclops, daphnea, water flea, and copepod. One of these is probably what you are seeing, though water mites are also possible. These (with the exception of a few types of uncommon parasitic copepods) are mainly harmless scavengers and algae eaters, water mites feed on aquarium plants. All of them are great food for fry and very small fish.
Another possibility is that one of your shrimp has spawned.

 

[dthomasi]

Thanks for the info guppy, I think it's one of those. They don't seem to be bothering anything so I'm not worrying about it anymore.