What in your experience is the best affordable cat water fountain?
Is a fountain really better than a bowl? Is the water clean? The recirculating feature doesn’t sound as clean to me as a properly maintained bowl, but I could be wrong.
Got mine at Walmart for about $20 because I wasn’t sure what kind of reception it would get. But after the initial “we fear change” stage got over everyone likes it. It seems pretty clean.
Thanks! What kind did you get? I just bought a PetMate one at my local pet store but so far she’s only drinking from the bowl part, not the waterfall part. The waterfall is the reason I wanted a fountain, because she likes running water. But if she’s only going to use the bowl part, I’ll take it back and keep her with her bowls. But for $20 I might be willing to keep trying a fountain. I’m gonna give her the rest of the week with this one to see if she will drink from the waterfall.
I got one at Petsmart for about $20, the water comes out the top into a bowl and then waterfalls down into a bigger water bowl.
My cats like to drink from where the water comes out but they also drink from the bowls. I’ve never seen them drink from the waterfalls.
It stays pretty clean, I dump and wash it out a couple times a week. I also keep it away from their food bowls so no food winds up in it. My cats love their fountain.
I just bought one where the water runs from a spout into the bowl. I set it up yesterday and almost immediately some sort of black oily-looking crap started appearing in the bowl. Nothing I could fish out, it looked like oil. The longer the fountain ran the more appeared. When I touched it with my fingertip it dissipated but still! 
I don’t want my kitty swallowing whatever that is. This is the second fountain I’ve tried. So far I’m not happy!
And the problem with ordering from Petco is, you can’t ship the item back. You have to find a Petco store and return it there.
Magaladon and PintoPony, which fountains did you buy? This one is a PetSafe Drinkwell that got good reviews on both Petco and Amazon, but I’m not gonna have my kitty ingesting black oily gunk!
Maybe you should cycle the water through it for a while to clean it, then dump it and see if the oily residue returns.
Manufacturer said it may be charcoal from the filter and perfectly harmless.
Charcoal harmless?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Activated charcoal like that used in water filters is harmless. In fact, activated charcoal is administered in cases of poisoning as it absorbs the toxins.
I’d just let it run awhile, then dump and add clean water.
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You should be able to take the filter out and put it under a running faucet to clear out any excess charcoal. It’s usually recommended to do that with all new charcoal filters.
We got one from a friend, and it’s a Drinkwell Platinum. What we like: the cats drink better, as evidenced by the wetness of the boxes and the happiness of the constipated cat. What we don’t like: it’s not new any more, and it vibrates and drives me crazy. I probably need to get a new motor. What we learned: use distilled water, and you can get away with cleaning it a LOT less; buy or find some tiny little brushes, because there are a lot of nooks and crannies that need cleaning; don’t soak the motor in vinegar, because you’ll spoil the little suction cups and then it will vibrate (see above); if you put it near a plant that needs a high humidity environment, you will make the plant happy, and/or if you put it near a forced hot air vent, you will humidify your room a little, too.
If I were going to buy another one, I’d buy a plainer model because whatever makes it a “platinum” just makes it harder to clean, as far as I can tell.
We put ours on a towel, on the tile floor of the spare bathroom near where the problem kitty likes to hang out. Make the right thing easy…
I’ve had cats that just love them, and cats that could care less. The current crew is in the care less camp. Given a bowl, and a fountain side by side, they go for the bowl. So, the fountain was cleaned and put away. Suits me just fine as it’s much easier to clean a bowl.
Thank you all for the replies. 
I’ve been letting it run for a couple of days now and the little black bits have disappeared. I did rinse the filter before I installed it.
My kitty went as far as looking at the fountain this morning, a nice close-up look at the running water. But she hasn’t drunk from it yet. I’ll give it a few more days since it will be a real hassle to return it to the store.
I use a Drinkwell. One cat likes to drink from the water coming off the spout and the other cat likes to stick his head under it. It’s the only one I could find that had the water come off a spout like that. It works ok, but the motor can make some odd noises or whine a bit which gets annoying.
Mine is just PetsMart brand, nothing fancy.
I had a Drinkwell one before this on but I think something happened to it when I moved and it quit working. Cats liked it too.
The PetsMart one was cheaper and is easier to clean it turns out.
It sits on a boot tray because sometimes it becomes a foot bath, lol!
