Anybody use kitty litter for refugium substrate?

lol, i figured if i posted over here i might get some more replies.

 

It won't stay course...it will dissolve and become mud

 

So its not necessary to cover it with live sand, I can just use the litter by itself and start running the fuge. Any rinsing or anything required?

 

Hey Pack, I poured the "special kitty" stuff in my 10G soon to be fuge. All thats in there is a air stone connected to a pump and a small heater and after I put it in, the water is...well.."muddy" lol. Now do I just wait a couple days or something for it to settle before I hook up the return pump and let it do its thing? I don't want my tank to look like mud ofcourse and wouldn't the flow from the overflow and return pump stir it up again?

 

after 2 months its still course? not muddy?

 

2 months? Its only been a few hours and the stuff has settled a bit, now I can see how deep it is. I will probably make it muddy again because I want to even it out. I get my pump tommorow afternoon so Ill update how it goes. Still scared of it making a mess in my tank.

 

I rinsed it in 5gal buckets then added it to my system so it wasn't cloudy, mines about 3in thick and you can tell it's grainy from lookin at the sides, I'll get a little but out an see if you handle it, if it turns muddy. Was yours the red bag?

 

Yea, the red bag from wal mart, I did put my hands in an squish some together and it does feel like clay and I was able to mash it together but I'm not about to go sculpting in there lol. I'm still real skeptical because its not clearing and Im afraid it will make a mess at the least in my DT when I turn the flow on. I'm reconsidering this and may go bare bottom with jus chaeto but I'll wait a couple days to see what happens and I'll check it with a pump running in it alone to see the result.

 

did you rinse it until it was clear? if not it will take a LONG time for it to uncloud. maybe you could run an extra HOB filter in the refugium with some filter floss or something?

 

Yea, its morning now and its still a mess so I'm gonna either toss that water and rinse it out or run a small hob on it. Luckily I have one lying around that will work