MISQUAH — Tim Brevik installed a new 200-gallon minnow tank at Tim’s Bait & Liquor on Thursday, retiring a unit that had been in service since 1979 and that, in its owner’s words, “developed a personality toward the end.”

A crowd of perhaps a dozen gathered at the Highway 9 store to watch the first minnows transferred into the new tank, a stainless-and-glass model Brevik ordered from a supplier in Bemidji. The changeover took most of the morning.

“It holds temperature a lot better,” Brevik said, leaning on the counter. “The old one, you’d lose half a scoop of fatheads on a hot day if you weren’t watching it. And it made a noise — a hum, then a knock, then the hum again. I’d gotten used to it. House feels a little quiet now, to be honest.”

Reaction among those present was favorable. “It’s a nice tank,” said Harold Aas, the retired postmaster, who stayed roughly forty minutes. “You can see clear to the back of it. You couldn’t before.”

Brevik said the store will continue to carry fatheads, shiners, suckers, and leeches, and that the crawler supply is “good, considering.” He added that the old tank is free to anyone with a truck “and pretty low standards,” and that as of Thursday afternoon no one had claimed it, though three people had stopped to look it over. The store, established in 1971, opens daily at 5:30 a.m.