Feces eating tick like critters

tapm

New member
I got a new fish in QT. I saw some white stringy feces and decided to check it out under my disecting scope. There were these small critters on the feces that looked a lot like ticks. There were a couple different sizes of these things. Does anyone know what they could be? I don't have a good parasite book at home. I FW dipped the fish before I put him in the tank so I'm not sure if they crawled on the feces or came out of the fish w/ the feces.
 
I found them on the net. They are water mites (acari). I don't think they are parasites just detritavores? Anyone have more info on these?
 
Some mites are detritivores but the majority are predators which suck fluids from their prey much like terrestrial spiders.
 
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