shrimp like creatures in my sump
 

i did a waterchange today and replaced media from sump. when i pulled out the media i found hundreds of little shrimp like creatures in all stages of development. i am wondering if this is good or bad.

good guys - amphipods and copepods

so i should leave them be

Yes

can i introduce them to the display as food

yes

What do you guys do when things are inhabiting your filter sponges? I found some life in there too, but I need to clean it to keep good water circulation. Any tricks so as not to just kill off everything on the sponges and save it a bit, but still somehow get the sponge clean?

These things breed like maniacs. I wouldn't want whatever is trapped in the filter media to go back into the tank so I wouldn't worry too much about the few on there.