I was swimming up a flowing water stream in the center of it looking to the sides, when saw the little water particles floating around to give some detail, but then I noticed that the particles appeared to be floating in the air around me and not in the stream I was in. I assume that the particles were made to surround the player in a large body of water where there is water everywhere so it looks like the particles are flowing in the water, but since that wasn't the case I saw the particles seeming to float in the air when I was submerged in the small amount of water.