I purchased three shrimp today for Tank #2, which is now officially called Asgard, home of the Norse gods. One male and two females: Balder, Sif, and Tiny Clanger. Balder, in mythology, was the fair son of Odin and Frigga. Sif was the wife of Balder's brother, Thor. Tiny Clanger is not from Norse mythology. That's the handle of a woman on FishProfiles who helped me diagnose Honegger's malady several weeks ago. After Honegger recovered, I told Tiny I would name a shrimp in my new tank after her.

Justin at Ocean Aquarium didn't know the exact species of these shrimp (and he knows his species), but he was quite excited about them because the males were blue and the females were red. I found a reference to the Caridina/Neocaridina sp. "Roter Zwerg", but there are so many algae shrimp strains, it's hard for my untrained eye to tell. They're young right now, so they haven't come into full coloration, but you can already tell Balder from Sif and Tiny. Their final size will be a little over an inch. When they've reached maturation, identifying their species may be easier.

The tank from which they came was super acidic, and Asgard measured today at almost neutral. I used a dropper to introduce several ml of Asgardian water to the bagged water, but I'm not sure if it was enough. If the pH shock doesn't kill these guys, they're going to be happy campers. I've already seen them gorging on Asgard's algae. Yay.