First off I'd say that the initial question is a bit simplistic. For that I would have to give a simple answer of, yes. In general I believe it is irresponsible to not have some type of back-up plan in place for problems such as power outages.
Before I got my generator I totally freaked out during the first power outage that only lasted a few hours. Luckily I had a nice neighbor that had one and allowed me to tap into it to keep my pumps running. For me it's not the amount of "$" I have invested, more the "life" I am responsible for.
I now have a generator that runs most everything in my house for 12hrs on one tank of gas. I still have to connect it to the house and start it when the power goes out though. It's not one of the expensive ones that starts on it's own but it does the trick.
I lost power last week for 36hrs. The worst thing was the high temp so I had to come up with more creative ideas for keeping my multiple systems cool. I'll be writing an article on this soon.
I currently don't have A/C but it is something that I'm going to have to invest in as I don't see the trend of hotter summers declining in the future.
I don't mean to sound harsh but we are responsible for the lives of the animals we care for and should take responsibility for them. I don't have a large income that affords a $10K generator, I'm a fish breeder for goodness sake, LOL! But I do feel that everyone should have some type of plan in place for emergencies. If you're spending hundreds of dollars on coral frags you can certainly afford a small generator from Home Depot.![]()