What is your power outage emergency plan?

On certain tanks I have a battery operated air pump and airstone. It is plugged into the wall and if the power goes out it turns on. In my basement I keep only cool water fish in a heavily planted tank so I don't worry about them and the upstairs tanks are near or easily moved to a room with a wood stove.

One option for you is to keep space blankets on hand. They will seriously slow down the cooling rate and if you have access to warm water that would probably be healpful. A camping stove used in a well ventilated area is a great thing to have on hand if you live in wintery areas where power outages can occur.

Silent prayer

and a Honda generator.

After wind storms this summer we were without electricity for over a week. I live in an "old growth" neighborood with lots of big tress which are nice and shady but also tend to fall down with regularity...usually on a powerline. (kinda like how tornados are drawn to trailer parks) In any case, this is the third time in three years where we faced several days without electricity and it costs me money every time. Forget the fish...burst frozen pipes, hundreds of $$ in lost food, I run my business from home...you name it...
A portable generator will get you by if you can get out and buy fuel...storing fuel is not a good idea as it goes stale and can cause problems with the carburator because the detergents lose their efficacy. In a pinch it'll work. But we literally couldn't drive 100 yards down our street for 3 days because of down trees last time...
So I went out and bought a Generac generator system. It runs on natural gas. Its permanantly connected to the main circuit panel in the house. It automatically senses a power failure and starts itself. When the power comes back on it shuts itself down. Its a 6 KW generator and as such is not powerful enough to run the entire home. But it can run the fridge/freezer, blower on the gas furnace, a TV and several light circuits. It won't run a central AC unit though there are models big enough to do that. Because it runs on natural gas you never have to buy fuel for it. It will run itself for about 10 minutes every week to charge its starter battery and keep the engine lubed. It sits next to my AC compressor on a concrete pad and looks like another compressor. I will never be without power again...
The only drawback is the cost. It ran $2500...I did most of the hookups and ran the lines/gas myself and hired an electrician to do the final connections. Total installation was about $200. But if you need to hire it all out it would run about $600-800.
If you have a home or business that absolutely depends on consistent flow of electricity I would absolutely recommend this system. Its not a question of if the light will go out but when and for how long.... For those of you with a gazillion dollars in your marine systems....imagine not being able to run your lights/system for a week!

http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=8

its an article for plantgeek.net, if you read the #3 section, it tells how to hopefully raise the survival rate of your fish. if not, got chop down all the trees by the power lines so they dont fall on them :laugh: :laugh: jk

I live in hurricane country and face power outages quite frequently. I have battery pumps for each tank for during the storms and a generator for after the storms when we can go back outside.
As you may recall this past year was a doozy for hurricanes and I was out of power for five days after one of them. I never lost a fish or coral- and had ice cream every night!
I realize that not everyone can just go buy something as costly as a generator but it is a good thing to have on many fronts.
I believe there is something called a "power inverter" that can be had for much cheaper that could run one tank for you.

I too have a generator--doubles to power-up the camper on longer trips. It's not a big deal to have the gas around--it gets used in a variety of other things at my house, so is never more than 3 months old.

Battery air pumps can be found at many fish stores--or check the bait section of a fishing store, or Walmart.

I'd submerge the biowheel close to where the air pump is going--that will keep many of the bacteria alive.

The Plant Geek article was good but missed a few things, IMO.

First, it is so easy to add some Prime to the tank when you lose a filter, that is the first thing I do. It detoxes nitrite as well.

Second, you don't need to throw away filter media! Just rinse well in dechlorinated tap water, try to match tank temps. Some bacteria will survive most likely, you just need to wash away the undigested wastes that are decaying there.

The filter media need to have oxygen. Remove the filter media from canisters and other submerged filters and place the sponges and stuff in a pan of shallow water, even a large bag with lots of air in it to retain the moisture is good. I think things like biowheels and HOB filters probably have enough air contact to keep the bacteria going, but for a long outage, even those might be pulled and wrapped to keep moist. Bacteria do not work well at temps under 55 (not certain of that but recalling from goldfish/koi pond info) and so as long as the temps are low, the bacteria are inhibited, but they can return slowly as the temps warm up. So, if it gets really cold, don't let the filters freeze if you can help it, move the media to a protected spot if you can.

Last, if you think the power may be out a long time, consider drawing some water and storing for water changes. Even if the power returns the water department may have had issues with maintaining water quality and may treat the lines for bacteria that could have grown in the lines. You might use a chlorine test on that first and second water change water, just to be sure you've treated it well enough, they may have doubled the chlorine. I know I read of one guy who saved his fish through that awful power outage on the east coast, only to lose the fish to the first water change.