The Puffer Forum

As you probably all know, Hurricane Ike hit Texas on Saturday night and knocked out power for almost all of Houston. Estimates are anywhere from 2-4 weeks before power is fully restored. We managed to escape to a friend's house, but our puffers had to stay behind. Is there anything we can do to improve their chances of survival with no power for several weeks? We put the filters into the tanks so the bacteria wouldn't die.

Our water was out when we left yesterday, and we're going back today to pick up some things and see if we were lucky enough to have power and water again. If there's no power and no water, is there anything we can do?

oh dear, tjat's not good... whats the temp like over there? Warm enough that the fish don't need heaters?

All you can do is keep the lids down to keep as much warmth in as possible. And feed very sparingly, so your water fouls up slower, the poisons in the water will kill your puffer faster than starvation will..

then just cross your fingers! (Unless you can move the whole tank to your friends until the water/electric are back on? Just a thought....

Yes, temperature is good - 80 degrees indoors and humid. We're not feeding them, at least for a few days when the water comes back on. It was on with very low pressure when we went back this morning. I figure the best we can do without electricity is water changes.

No way to move them... tanks are 55, 36, and 10 gallons. Fortunately the fish in the 55 and 10 are quite small so they each have a lot of water to dilute waste. Our 6 inch GSP is in the 36 - we're most worried about him.

Battery powered pumps or a generator is about all you can do.