does anyone use clay kitty litter as refugium 'mud' and what are peoples' opinions regarding this substrate in a reef tank?

i wouldnt do it....it smells like problems

hehe where did this idea even come from.. random thought or another source?

i'm banking on unused kitty litter if it works.

100% clay kitty litter is theoretically the same as unseeded refugium mud right?

hmm i honestly have no experience nor research into this. My initial thought is that the litter would have addatives in it to help it clump together and keep smell down etc. I dont think its reef/aquarium compatible, or atleast would suspect it is not.

Is there an ingredient label on this. (my cat is outside cat so have no clue about ingredients)

i feel this is a bad idea, you dont know the purity of the litter, sure it will be ok for a FW tank, but im guessin your goin to introduce alot of unwanted minerals

your talkin bout the cheap kitty litter, that is just clay right? old fw planted trick...larerite substitute

I wouldn't do it either.. maybe just stick with LR?

yeah i definitely didn't come up with it. other sites have discussed it as being a totally acceptable substitute to fuge mud if it is 100% clay such as the 'special kitty' brand sold at walmart. obviously it's a ridiculous place to cut corners if there is any risk at all to using it but it is intirguing to think that kitty litter could make a good clay based mud for a refugium at practically zero cost.

anyone else care to weigh in on this one?

They add stuff to it. Not sure what. I have sold conveying equipment to the plants and from what I have seen there is more then just clay in it.

Stop being cheap and buy some REEF MUD!

Not to be the devils advocate But it has been used in fresh water planted systems for years. I have had a planted tank for 7 years with it as the inner most layer of my substrate. Clay is a natural clumping material. Just look for a all natural/organic one and that is safe for FW use. Marine use I dont know. Just a thought though.

there is other places to get the "pure" stuff...you can get it at auto parts stores as spill treatments....again, even if they are using just straight up clay for it, i wouldnt risk it...

after all, its just for cats to sht in or to sop up spilled break fluid, i really doubt there is any real quality control

could always shoot mythbusters an email about it

I don't run a fuge on my 10 gallon reef admit it though...you're at least a little curious




I know that a reefer uses it on his/her 75 gallon tank...but i dont know more than that.

This may help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_box

I have a friend who used a product called sani-sorb in his freshwater planted tank. I would be careful though, you do not know the excavation process or packaging facility. Used to repair hydraulics on machines that do excavation work, what an oily mess.

in that case...does anybody use oil dry for their refugium substrate?

The clay types used in kitty litter are Bentonite, Attapulgite or Montmorillonite. Should be able to find
out the chemical composition of these with a little web searching......

DougN

i guess the question is, assuming quality control could this substance be used as an appropriate substitute for fuge mud?

Was this an intentional play on words? Kitty litter smells like problems...

Made me chuckle.

If it is just clay with little or no additives, it'd be something I'd try... But not on an established system.

A fun experiment, but I don't think I'd risk an existing reef tank to try it out.

yeah i laughed at that too. i weaseled around it with the 'unused' comment




it does sound interesting. how would you go aout trying it out if you were starting a new system..i.e. how would you isolate the kitty litter as a variable ?

I don't think something that something that is designed to be affordable has rigorous quality control standards. Best of luck to you though. Let us know what happens.

Aquaria, especially SW aquaria, are too complex to control well in an experiment. If you had a flow-through system fed by an ocean, it'd be a lot better.

If I wanted to try it out, I would just construct a new system and add the litter to the fuge before I added the water. Let things cycle and whatnot... Just see how it goes. If all seems to go well, you could disconnect the refugium from the now semi-mature system and move it to your established system.

yeah, i wouldn't argue otherwise. the question remains is the stuff the same as fuge mud not counting quality control.

I'm still probably about 6 weeks away from putting a 40 breeder together and adding water. when i do finish the build i will use kitty litter (clay) as the refugium substratea and see where it goes. if anyone is interested in the short term results i'll post them here.

If I were going to do a fuge, which I wouldn't, I would use Profile. Profile is available at home depot in the pond section, it is pure ceramic media which is used to frow FW plants. I have used this on several planted tanks and had great success. Cat litter is very light so it may blow around, the profile will at first but after a while it will saturate.

kitty litter is really popular on a different forum I moonlight on...unscented seems pretty safe. I havent seen any growing results though from them. (or failures etc...) What are you trying to grow? Post your stories maybe.... ?

When we ship screw conveyors to the Kitty Litter plants they have a water based enamel on the interior of the conveyors. When they start running product through the conveyor the paint wears off and is it the product. There are also additives that are used to help dry the clay faster. Then you have the fillers that are also added. I have seen them make this stuff and I would buy the fuge mud. In FW tanks it may not be an issue. FW are more forgiving then SW tanks.

so these are the unscented 100% clay kitty litter plants? I have read, for example, that the 'special kitty' brand sold at walmart that is 100% clay is safe to use. obviously that doesn't account for the example you provided so i am curious if they are all using additives to dry the clay faster.

There are additives that are FDA approved that will remove some of the water content in the clay. It is cheaper then the energy an time in a dryer. And since it has a faster drying time it is cheaper to make. If the additive is less then one percent of the volume and it dries off. No one has done the test to see what is left. The conveyors are mild steel also. The bearings are Hardened Iron or Gatke material all of witch will leave traces in the litter. The 100% Clay refers to what they start with not the process or the chemicals involved in the process. Since it is not eaten the FDA or no other part of the government is going to care if there are traces of other elements in the litter. As long as it is not going to hard cats or humans not an issue to them.


Remember it does not say Reef Safe on the bag.

this seems like a reckless risk to your aquarium/livestock investment for a questionable/marginal benefit even if it works just how you hope.

it does sound that way.



thanks. that about does it. it was fun to think about for a minute though

Here is a good test. 10 gallon aquarium, powerhead, heater and a light. Throw some kitty litter into the aquarium and put some macros and live rock. Wait for awhile and then tell me that it has or hasn't worked

I'll bet someone said adding vodka to an aquarium is a dumb idea, same with live rocks or a plethora of other common practices in use today. Don't knock it until you know.

The problem will be with the coral not the macros. It is a chance and you may lose your reef. I would not want to take that chance.

Even building a reef tank is "taking a chance". I say give it a shot and see how it goes.

Kitty litter , cut top off a 2 liter bottle 1/4 pound of live rock throw in a tiny powerhead in a sunny window. Sounds like a good project for this summer .

there is a very clear distinction between carefully dosing a filtered, "for consumption" carbon source, intended for a specific purpose (bacterial colonization) and throwing an indeterminate amount of an indeterminate substance (cat litter, which is clay + mystery clumping/drying agents and other chemicals or impurities, none of which is manufactured for consumption) into your tank because you think it might make a substitute for another mystery-substance, reef mud.

i'm not saying that it's a bad theory or that it wouldn't work -- it very well could. i'm just saying that i would personally be wary of putting something into my tank (with the hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of livestock in it) without knowing what's in it. that's all i'm saying.

I might have missed where people suggested that this was a good idea?

I used vermiculite, perlite, soil from my back yard and Miracle Gro spikes when I was doing FW planted tanks. None of that was manufactured for consumption and some of those materials are strongly discouraged on some forums. I didn't care, I decided I was going to give it a shot and see what came of it. The result was a 40 breeder that survived 6 months of my being out of the country (just weekly topoffs). When I came home, the plants had grown out of the water and were flowering. I didn't even lose any of my amano shrimp during that time.

What's the moral of this memoir? Know what you are getting into and feel free to try whatever methods you want even if others say you shouldn't.

I don't think that the OP ever suggested that he might try this (or counsel someone else to try this) on an established reef tank. This would be a from-the-ground-up project wherein there'd be plenty of time to identify potential problems.

fair enough -- i guess what i'm getting at is, at the end of the day, you're going to be exposing livestock to the mystery chemicals, and whatever their long-term effects are. maybe the negative effect isn't "immediate death/disease" -- maybe it's stunted growth, compromised immune system, etc. who knows. the point is, i don't think that the average hobbyist who's trying to save money on reef mud is going to be in a position to properly evaluate what the actual effects of the long-term exposure are.

I get you vis-a-vis chronic vs. acute exposure, but we already chronically expose our livestock to a variety of other "chemicals" such as krylon fusion paint, silicone and whatever is floating around in our houses.

a test tank is a must here..... get some in some salt water and let it sit for a week or so, and then break the test kits out....

test for the usual monsters, phosphates, copper, etc...

that stuff you've mentioned is already there, and is, for the most part, unavoidable.

i don't think it's fair to say that there's no difference in exposing livestock to these ostensibly unavoidable contaminants than exposing them to all those unavoidable contaminants plus the contaminants in a whole bed of kitty litter.

(but, in any event, i think we're in agreement as to the main points here)

blockclimber, i think you're right to say test for phosphates/copper/etc. -- but what about the things we can't/don't test for?

good point, there are things we just dont have test kits for....

im thinking xenia right now for some reason.....after you get a "cycle" goin in the kitty litter beta tank, and all testable parameters are in the green, i would drop some xenia in there