Microorganism Identification Help

[eddie462]

I need help with identifying these animals. They swim at the water’s surface of a pond. These creatures swim in rapid circles when I shine a flashlight on the pond. It’s hard to see them during the day. The animals are smaller than seed shrimp. They don’t swim in jerky motions like daphnia. They don’t sit on the sides of the cup like copepods. 
 

Will a picture my macrolense be required for identification? They’re a fantastic food source for the 27 Pseudomugil gertrudae Aru II fry I pulled out of the pond last week. Those fry grew up very quickly with that endless buffet.

Edited October 19, 2022 by eddie462

[Cory]

Look up seed shrimp and see if you think they look similar in real life. Picture makes it hard.

[nabokovfan87]

You might get slightly less distortion taking a photo from the top looking down into the cup.

[eddie462]

On 10/18/2022 at 10:52 PM, Cory said:

Look up seed shrimp and see if you think they look similar in real life. Picture makes it hard.

 

On 10/18/2022 at 11:26 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

You might get slightly less distortion taking a photo from the top looking down into the cup.

It’s not a seed shrimp as I have seed shrimp in an aquarium. These crustaceans are smaller than a millimeter. Here’s pictures taken with a macrolense. I don’t have the Aquarium Co-op specimen container yet to have a picture without distortion. I don’t know why they are upside down when I put them in my post. Regarding rare rainbowfish from the livestream yesterday, they aren’t like some rare livebearers or tetras in that the fish have little color. Here’s a picture of the Kali Tawa rainbowfish. 

[nabokovfan87]

@modified lung Might be able to help.  It's very hard to see anything looking at the second set of photos.  I would try to take a photo looking down into the cup to remove some distortion. 

The second set looks like you need a microscope to see!  Very tiny right now.