Possible parasite or seamonkeys

[Jinxs]

So my husband sends me a picture of what I assumed was a shrimp molt but is actually a miniscule critter.
We had a velvet outbreak in June. Our tank has been fallow since June 10th. The only thing that has been in it is our live rock and our hermit crabs. We haven't added anything at all to the tank since.
We have never had copepods or anything in our tank. Tonight though, my husband saw these in his camera under zoom trying to take a picture of a hermit. The biggest ones are maybe 2mm whilst most are 1mm or smaller.
They kind of look like seamonkeys. Can anyone please tell me if this is a parasite or something that will hurt our fish when we put them back in?
It's been 83 days since we started the fallow period. Thank you in advance.

 

[Jinxs]

They are everywhere! Except the sand. There's probably thousands of them.

 

[Jinxs]

Got some more pictures. Hard to get close up on them when they are so freaking small.

 

[jpreefer]

Copepods. Also "sea monkeys" are brine shrimp

 

[Jinxs]

Copepods. Also "sea monkeys" are brine shrimp

Thank you. We have never added any thing like that to our tank so we are totally unaware of the nuances of them. How would they have added themselves to our tank?

 

[Jinxs]

Here is the one my husband took. It's a good one.

 

[powdertang05]

copepods. Good stuff. Many wish they had as many as you when they get a Mandarin.

 

[Jinxs]

copepods. Good stuff. Many wish they had as many as you when they get a Mandarin.

Thank you. We've spoken about getting a mandarin goby but didn't know how to cultivate copepods and decided against it. I don't understand where they came from.

 

[powdertang05]

worst case get tigger pods from your LFS. They are awesome fish but hard to take care of. Most advance fish are... :/

 

[ThunderGoose]

Pods can come in with live rock or coral frags. They're very good to have in any reef tank.

 

[ezzelld]

Ask your LFS what fish eat these. You have a natural food source. I wanted to get a goby but was told I needed to have copapods fist.

 

[Paul B]

They could be amphipods, Hard to see, great for a tank, leave they alone, I also have thousands of them

 

[Jinxs]

I've been doing some research and I think they're amphipods. Copepods are smaller than what we have and none of ours are on the glass or floating. You can visibly see them crawling all over the live rock. You have to really focus but you can see them. They've got spiky little antenna and are almost translucent with a touch of brown or grey.

 

[Jinxs]

I mean, our hermit crabs have been eating them. I'm thinking they spawned after our heater went nuts and put our tank at 90 degrees. We saw them after that. Thank God the tank has been fallow and no fish were in there.

 

[erk]

The reason you have them is because your tank is fallow. They come in with live rock, algae, frags, etc. The velvet outbreak meant the fish we're no longer around to eat the amphipods. You can't see them easily, but you probably also have tons of copepods as well. It's a sign of a healthy tank. Once you add fish back to the tank, the population will go back down.

 

[Jinxs]

The reason you have them is because your tank is fallow. They come in with live rock, algae, frags, etc. The velvet outbreak meant the fish we're no longer around to eat the amphipods. You can't see them easily, but you probably also have tons of copepods as well. It's a sign of a healthy tank. Once you add fish back to the tank, the population will go back down.

That is the best explanation for where they've been and came from. Thank you. Velvet killed all of our fish except for one ridiculously tough blenny. We lost 2 clowns, a dwarf white spotted puffer, Coral Beauty angel, and flame Fin tomini tang in a matter of hours.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Munnid isopods.

 

[CastAway]

Looks like munnid isopods. Very good. Eaten by everything I think.

 

[Jinxs]

Looks like munnid isopods. Very good. Eaten by everything I think.

I just looked up munnid isopods. They look exactly the same from the body and leg shape to the coloring. Thank you all! Just transferred all of our fish from the 29g to the 55g.