Jumping mites? What?

[jenma]

Help, my classroom has a 65 gallon reef tank w/70 lbs. live rock. We've got a variety of invertebrates (emerald crabs, sally lightfoots, coral banded shrimp, turbos, hermits) plus some mushroom, star polyps, and button polyp corals, and then a pygmy angel, two perculas, and a royal gramma. There is a large protein skimmer and we do regular 10-20% water changes.
Just today a student noticed some "jumping dust" at and just below the surface. It literally looks like teeny, tiny specks of dust swimming around. They stay right at the surface, only going down maybe 2 inches into the water collumn. What the heck are these things? Does this sound familiar to anyone out there?
Thanks, The Ponderosa Room

 

[reefkprz]

sounds like the plaktonic stage of some aquaria life. a micro scopic look would help identify it...... hard to tell. someone else may know more. good luck.

 

[oreo12]

are they still there?