Penn Plax Silent Air Battery Operated Aquarium Air Pump for Power Outage Automatic Turn On Keeps Fish Safe

I will review again after a power outage, but for the test run, I was pleasantly surprised. After reading some of the reviews where people may have complained that it was incredibly weak, I thought wellll, they've got a FIFTY-FIVE gallon of course it'll be weak. My tanks are 10 gallons and 4-5 gallons. Since I needed 2, I purchased this one and another brand and thought I'd compare and if one were weaker, I'd use that on the 4+ gallon.This one is the Penn-Plax Silent Air B11 Battery Operated Air PumpSold by: OneStopFishShop fulfilled by Amazon $14.99The other one is the AQUATOP AC/DC Single Battery Operated Air PumpSold by: Amazon.com LLC $10.971) They both have a box that you open up to put the DD batteries in (2). You can see the "inner workings" of what makes it go.2) Close it and they both have a button on the outside to use for turning it on, like when you want to test it, or if you choose not to leave it plugged in and want to turn it on manually.3) They both come with a short airline tubing (one was 19 and the other 23 I think, inches) and each had an air stone, pretty much identical in shape/size. I used a T junction and added an appropriate length of airline tubing to the one that had a shorter length of tubing. The other one just reaches to hang into the tank and I will duct tape it to the outside of the tank to prevent it from popping out when in use. This works fine right now, since I'm working from home and expecting to use it manually when the power goes out (as opposed to leaving it plugged in and letting it kick in automatically when the power goes out, which I will set up when I know I'll be gone for an extended time.).4) They both have a power cord. The Aquatop had the shorter cord at around 3 feet (check the specs) and this one had about 5 feet (again check the specs), so depending on where you want it, that might impact choice, but there's always an extension cord that can be used. My set up just happened to work fine for both of the tanks... I've got this one on the 4+ gal and the other one on the 10 gallon.5) While the case on the Aquatop seemed a little cheaper or more cheaply made maybe, I didn't see ANY difference between the 2 in production of bubbles.6) I was surprised how bubbly they both were! I don't have an air stone in either tank, so the bubbles are little by comparison to the ones from my sponge filter on the 4 gal (the 10 has an Aqueon 30 power filter, so no bubbles to compare). But, there are a TON of them coming out of those little stones!The summer storms have kicked into high gear and as I already lost power earlier in the season for a couple hrs, I won't be surprised if I need these! Although with Murphy's Law, now I won't... but I can tell you that the peace of mind I'll have is great with BOTH of these items.Will update if needed and I use them for any prolonged length of time.UPDATE: Used when out of town for 4 days and I know there was a power outage (probably only a couple hrs as the ice in the freezer had only melted a little) but both worked fine. I think the battery usage is good too as the batteries were NOT new and yet have worked fine for several hrs and still have some charge. BE CAREFUL about creating a drip loop. I did not and after I took the line and stone out of the aquarium, I noticed the tubing had water in it. I didn't have a place to set it up properly, so I'll have to figure that out for next time. But, the water parameters were fine after I returned so it must have gotten water in it AFTER it stopped. One thing though... when I went to pull the air stone out of the tube to dry the tube, it CRUMBLED!!! I don't know which stone came with which setup but they were virtually identical. I will just replace with another stone. Not sure why that happened, the stone was still wet but I don't think it should have broken up when I went to pull it out of the tube. Still worth the money and great product. Just don't know what the heck with the stone.

Bought this back in May 2024 and I am so glad that I did! We have had the most power interruptions this year than we have had in the past 3 years put together plus we were without power when Hurricane Helene hit here in East TN for over 3 days.This little air pump kicks in just as soon as the power stops and puts out a good amount of air. I have a 75 gallon tank with only a few fish but it keeps the tank aerated enough to keep the fish happy and alive. I keep the unit itself attached behind the canister filter lines just before they go into the tank and the air line with the stone stays down in the water just behind my main air bubbler (see pics). So the fish really notice no difference. Easy set up and no maintenance needed other than batteries but I have yet to change out my original batteries (Duracell) and they have most likely 12 hours of usage on them.You never know when there will be a loss of power and if you’re not home it could be a costly issue. We have a generator so we hooked the tank up to that after about 4 hours of the power not coming back on during Helene so the bubbler did awesome during that time. I recommend this product for anyone that has a fishy friend who wants them to stay alive when the power goes out!

I have 3 of these battery back up filters attached to 2 10 gallon tanks and a 5 gallon tank. I can personally attest that these work exactly as described, except for one thing...they are very loud. Now I’d rather had alive fish then a quiet back up filter so it’s no big deal to me. The way these work is you plug them into an outlet and press the red button down. When the unit detects that the power is off, through your outlet, then it automatically turns on. When the unit detects that the power is back on, through your outlet, it automatically turns off again. The first outage I experienced was around an hour and unexpected. The filters worked just fine and I didn’t change the batteries. The second outage was expected, as the power company was doing some scheduled work. This outage lasted about 2 hours and the batteries still worked perfectly. So I can say with certainty that the battery life is 3 hours at a minimum. The other thing to note is it is a powerful filter so keep that in mind depending on what fish you have. My 3 tanks each house a betta and a few bottom feeders like corys and ottos. My bettas are used to a sponge filter with low flow so I presume it was a shock for them when this filter came on but it was temporary and they have hiding spots. One last thing...one of the air stones provided didn’t last that long but since they are so inexpensive then replacing them isn’t a big deal to me.

Me, my furry animals and my saltwater fish just lived through Tropical Storm Harvey and I'm very glad I made this purchase. I had this unit ready to go ahead of the storm with a good supply of D size batteries just in case. Luckily I only had a couple of power outages but I used this unit each time and it performed nicely. I had to tape it to the top of my bio-cube because the airline supplied with the unit is too short for my tank setup, but that's ok, it did it purpose which was to give my clownfish and cleaner shrimp much needed air. I took away one star due to the fact that it isn't silent like it says. It's very noisy, but I didn't really mind that so much because I knew it was working. If you live in a power outage prone area like I do here in Houston and don't have a back-up generator, do yourself and your fishy friends a favor and purchase a battery powered air pump. It could save your tank from a serious crash.