More problems!?

[Faylow]

Seems each time I look, something else is going wrong. Just doing a water change, being careful to avoid any of the baby shrimp. But looking closely, I see some tiny tiny mites or something dashing about, no bigger than a speck. What are they. Too small to get a picture.

 

[GaryE]

Not a problem - probably a good thing. You can't control life, and if conditions are good, there will be more in your aquarium than you expected.

 

[Beastije]

I cant really tell from the picture, but the general knowledge is, if you have shrimp only tank, without any fish to eat this, the water will develop the usual things you will find in the outside waters, zooplankton, daphnias and other critters. I will try to find the article where I have seen it, many are not harmful, some will be tiny worms from detritus (also not harmful). I also have a shrimp only tank and to avoid this, I have Utricularia gibba, the smallest of "meat-eating" aquatic plants, that is supposed to deal with these small critters and is too small to capture even a newborn shrimp.
However, I have had the shrimp tank only for 3 months and am barely getting first batch of babies, so no real results yet, and I saw something microscopic hop around in my tank too, so who knows.

 

[Faylow]

It's not shrimp only, I have some platy and a horrible snail!

 

[Colin_T]

Can we get some background information about what you are talking about?
ie: you have a glass jar with newly hatched brineshrimp in and something is in the water with them, or on the surface of the water?

You have platies and a snail with the newly hatched brineshrimp?

I need some clarification so I understand what you are talking about.

 

[Faylow]

I have 3 red platys and some cherry shrimp which have just had babies. The snail was there to clean-up but has just laid eggs, so made more mess then it was worth! I only used the glass jar to try to isolate the mite thing.

 

[Colin_T]

Is the mite thing living in the water or running around on the surface of the water?

Can you describe its shape, colour and how it moves?

 

[Faylow]

In the water and kind of dashes about the place

 

[Slaphppy7]

A video might help, to see how they move about

 

[Faylow]

Can't see how to post video

 

[Colin_T]

Might be a cyclops (copepod). They are small and grey and flick about in the water. If so they are generally harmless and most fish eat them.

 

[Essjay]

Can't see how to post video

Upload a video to YouTube or similar site and post the link on here.