The Puffer Forum

Not me, but several friends with the recent storms lost power, and in some cases, went days without power in 30˙F temperatures... does anyone have any recommendations for keeping their aquariums heated in the event of a power outage?

Generator.

+ to PP.

wood stove to keep the temp up there

generator to keep the pumps running

After rushing out 2x last year to rent a generator (after the neighbor's weak, sickly willow tree broke off large branches yet again, during a torrential storm), hubby has finally made a deal with me to pay 1/2 for a generator he saw on sale today!

The other important thing is to get the filter media out of the filter and into the tank, and to keep things well-aerated. You can keep battery-powered air pumps on hand that will last you a couple days at least in an emergency.

Some of us with generators do not need additional heat - if the pump and filters are all running, heaters are never used in my tanks. but for more conventionally equiped tanks the battery powered air pumps can be lifesavers.

Yes, I've been putting together an emergency kit (MS-222, battery air pump and spare batteries, etc.), and I love the feeling of having backup. It helps that two of my three tanks are equipped with air-driven filters, too.

LilGreenPuffer wrote:The other important thing is to get the filter media out of the filter and into the tank, and to keep things well-aerated. You can keep battery-powered air pumps on hand that will last you a couple days at least in an emergency.

good advice for freshwater, but really not salt as why would you have a filter...

Either way I keep a straw near my tank so if the power goes out I can keep it aerated...

Poweroutages here only last for a few hours for rolling blackouts during summer when people are using too much power. My only fear is an earthquake, but rare enough that Im gonna skip the generator.

Not all SW tanks have internal, integral biofiltration even today - for some reason I don't quite grasp myself. But if the tank does have such, the "media" is already in the tank water - and you do still need aeration, big time. The BOD (biological oxygen demand) of marine setups is huge...

Flow is way more important than even light in a reef tank.

if you blow thru the straw into the tank you're not adding oxygen.

Actually, if you aerate with inert gas (N2, for example) you will increase the aeration in the tank. It is the circulation, not the O2 content of the gas involved, that matters - exactly as PP emphasized with her follow-up comment to my aeration post. Current and surface movement are what do the job, not the O2 content of the gas involved in providing aeration. For some reason, hobbyists don't seem to pick up on that point. In a power outage, the battery operated pumps don't provide that fine bubbles (high surface to volume ration) needed for easy solution of the O2 from the bubbles during the brief transit to the surface (SW folk have an advantage there - they get finer bubbles more easily). It is mostly from the surface movement and currents involved that we get oxygen into the water and spread through the tank.

The bioload and BOD of a reef are astronomic in comparison to FW systems. Reefers really need generators. The capital investment in livestock is too large to ignore, and once the system starts fouling, death spreads like wildfire.