Greetings and salutations everyone. I'm new around here, so I wanted to introduce myself. I'm (at least for the time being) Casper's new caretaker. I picked him up last Saturday. Funny enough, it was my anniversary that day. Good thing my wife and I don't really care too much about it and don't stand on ceremony. She took the kids to Costco and I spent the day shuttling tanks, equipment, fish and stands back and forth from Vancouver. How romantic...
As for how I came to acquire this absolute unit of a fish:
I was out of the hobby for about ten years until getting back into it during quarantine. I work from home anyway, but the extra time at home meant needing to find something to do and I can only remodel my house so much. In the span of 6 months, I went from a single 10 gallon tank to over 500 gallons of water in my house (including the ones I just picked up from Sean). I've previously kept mostly tetras and livebearers throughout the years, but big fish were never really on my radar.
I had a 75 gallon tank in my garage that I was waiting to move inside after the painting in my living room was done. I liked the size of the 75 gallon, but I had also really loved the idea of a big 125 and had built a custom stand that would accommodate one if I decided to go that route, thinking it would be hard to convince my wife to get a tank that big, especially since a previous 75 gallon had leaked all over our floor...all while I was 400 miles away and I had to Facetime her way through draining the tank and moving the fish.
I routinely cruise through OfferUp and Craigslist looking for used tanks that look promising. (I don't know what it is about used tanks, but all the used tanks I've gotten don't have algae issues. I don't know what it is.) At one point, I happened across Sean's posting and bookmarked it, just to kind of keep an eye on it, but not really thinking it was a possibility. I moved my 75 into the house, full aquascaped and put community fish in. The tank itself looked great (if I do say some myself), but a 4 foot tank looks awkward on a 6 foot stand. I needed a 125. I casually mentioned it to my wife and she was surprisingly on board. I think she's secretly just as into it as me, but she knows if she shows more than a reluctant curiosity, that we'll end up with even more thanks. Plus, she had just adopted two dogs from the Oregon Humane Society, so she owes me one.
I revisited Sean's original posting and saw that prices had dropped on the tank setups and all the fish were now free. I wanted to help out if I could and we started messaging back and forth. I could see that he really had a love for his fish, especially Casper, and I had original inquired about taking all three tanks and all the livestock in the process. I researched all the fish that he had and didn't feel confident in my ability to care for that many (soon to be) large fish. In the time that I was researching, he ended up selling one of the tanks, which made my job a little easier. I offered to buy the two remaining tanks and foster Casper until Sean could be in a situation where he could take him back. I know it was tough for Sean to give up Casper, but I'll give him a good home in the meantime.
I think he was a little cranky about being moved at first, but has since settled in nicely and I feel like he's been much more interactive in the last few days. He didn't seem to want to eat much for the first few days, but yesterday, I went to feeding him around his normal mid-day feeding time and he was much more agreeable to eating. That's OK. I'm not a morning person either.
I turned Casper's original tank into a planted community tank and combined all the sand with the sand from the other tank I bought so Casper has plenty of landscaping material to work with. He's dug himself a nice little pit in the back that he hangs out in when he wants to hide. Other than that, he's been exploring around and making himself at home. He hasn't bitten me yet, but I'm definitely very aware of where he is whenever I have my hands in the tank. He did very deliberately spit a whole mouthful of sand at me today, though. I'm going to say that means "You seem cool. Let's be friends."
I'll try to update here from time to time. It's been fun to explore this community, look back through all the post history and see how well-loved Casper is. It's part of the reason I wanted to take care of him. I'm already a big fan of him and my family likes him too. My kids like "playing" with him, having him chase their finger across the tank and my wife has nicknamed him "Frank the Tank". The new dogs, who are super jumpy, even seem to like him. He's on a built-bench in the garage now, but with how active he is and how fun he is to watch, I might have to see about making him some space inside. I've always found the bubbling of a sponge filter very soothing, but the gentle waterfall of the couple AquaClear 110's is quite pleasant, too. I'm thinking there might be something to these bigger fish...
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^ Right before spitting that mouthful of sand at me.
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^ "This is my pit. There are many like it, but this one is mine"
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^ "I should come back next time with more sand to spit at you"
^ 0:28: *Bonk*