The Puffer Forum

I did all the searching possible on power outages. And the only info I can ge is what I should do incase of an outage.

But I have my gsp in a 30gal and a kleins butterfly in a 80gal taking care of my aiptasias. My question is: how long do I have before I need to take action?

Power went out at 330 pst and they say it could last into tomorrow night...

Can you rent a generator somewhere?

The power outage is huge, from southern california down to tijuana and in parts of arizona as well. there's nowhere open or with any power near me that has the generators for rental. My piff is already sitting at the bottom of the tank and is darker in color than I've ever seen him before. And the butterfly is just hiding in my live rocks...
Any suggestions besides that?

My tanks cannot go more than 4 hours without water flow (more like 3), before things start dying.

Last overnight outage, my hubby stayed up all night with me, pumping my reef tank with an air pump, while I went from tank to tank (I have with a pitcher, filling it with tank water & splashing it back into the tank, from as high as I could reach--all night long. As soon as the shop opened, I went to rent a generator. You could try to see if your LFS has a batery air pump. I believe someone here mentioned using a car battery.

Pufferpunk wrote:My tanks cannot go more than 4 hours without water flow (more like 3), before things start dying.

Last overnight outage, my hubby stayed up all night with me, pumping my reef tank with an air pump, while I went from tank to tank (I have with a pitcher, filling it with tank water & splashing it back into the tank, from as high as I could reach--all night long. As soon as the shop opened, I went to rent a generator. You could try to see if your LFS has a batery air pump. I believe someone here mentioned using a car battery.

Wow, that is crazy. What a long and stressful night that must have been. = /

puffpaddy wrote:The power outage is huge, from southern california down to tijuana and in parts of arizona as well. there's nowhere open or with any power near me that has the generators for rental. My piff is already sitting at the bottom of the tank and is darker in color than I've ever seen him before. And the butterfly is just hiding in my live rocks...
Any suggestions besides that?

What happend to cause the outage? I'm really sorry = / wish I had good advice for you. There is some way to add O2 to the tanks by using hydrogen peroxide, but I have never had to use that on a puffer tank before, so I am not sure if it is safe.

Thanks for the quick help PP! About an hour after I made my last post the power came back on. SDGE doesn't know the cause, but they do know two main power sources were severed. Everyone is back to being happy.. And PP that pitcher with water thing worked! I got home and did that and my puff got off the bottom of the tank and started swimming up and down the glass!

Just a lesson learned, next time ill be ready.

Theyalso sell inverter to plug into you cigarette lighter they only have 1 or 2 outlets but its usually enough to keep just a pump or 2 running with out killing your car battery . They are pretty cheap ! Or I would reccomend a battery back up if the generator is out of the question! Thats what im thinking about getting. Just as a precaution!

I'm going to be looking into some kind of power back up. Last night was wayyyy too stressful on me. I feel like I should have been laying on the floor of my room like my puffer!

Pufferpunk wrote:My tanks cannot go more than 4 hours without water flow (more like 3), before things start dying.

Last overnight outage, my hubby stayed up all night with me, pumping my reef tank with an air pump, while I went from tank to tank (I have with a pitcher, filling it with tank water & splashing it back into the tank, from as high as I could reach--all night long. As soon as the shop opened, I went to rent a generator. You could try to see if your LFS has a batery air pump. I believe someone here mentioned using a car battery.

That's true love. Way to go!

I always keep a battery-powered pump and extra batteries around! I put airstones in the filters and let the plants do the work in the tanks themselves.

A friend of mine got through a power outage with a bike pump.