(snip)

I have a Drinkwell and have never used the filter with it.  However, I
do fill it with filtered water from the tap.  And I clean it twice a
week with hot water and mild soap.  I have not had any problems with
this arrangement, but I think it may also depend on the cat.  If Persia
drops food or toys in the fountain I would keep using the filter to
trap any particles.

It amazes me how much the cats seem to like having a fountain.  Several
months ago I was bringing in groceries from the car the neighbor's
itty bitty kitty wondered in the house.  The first thing he did was
plant both front feet in the Drinkwell and start playing in the water!
It was hysterical the way Simba and pepper came RUNNING in to the
kitchen and then just froze when they saw this little gray ball of
fluff in their fountain.  The dumbfounded look of both cats was
priceless.

~Jemfur , Simba and Pepper

As you know, I have 3 of those fountains - now two as the motor on the first
one I bought finally died a slow and noisy death.  Not sure exactly why
yours do that, but mine only catch the filth in the water (bits of cat food,
cat hair and other gunk).  If not washed regularly, they bowls have a
tendancy to get the 'slimey' feel to them.  Here in Indiana, we have hard
water due to all the limestone deposits - county south of us is the
Limestone Capital, with quarries and mills scattered all over, and their
limestone was used in Empire State Building, and in the recent rebuilding of
the Pentegon.  Down the road from us are a couple of quarries & mills.  We
get crusty lime-scale on *everything*.  Nothing works but vinegar to get rid
of it (once every 6 months I wash all the drinking glasses & such in the
dishwasher without any added soap, but instead add a cup or two of white
vinegar - they come out sparkly!).

I have run my fountans without filters for a period, when I was out of them
(they're not sold locally here - not even PetsMart, though they have them in
their online store). With *8* cats drinking out of them, they got yuckie
pretty quick.  Before the one died, we had it out on the (enclosed) back
porch (or tiled room as Weebs calls it), and one morning I found a *huge*
daddy-long-legs in the bowl, still squirming and spinning in lazy circles.
I fished him out & set him on the back walk.  After about a minute, he
wandered off, seemingly un-traumatised by his near-death experiance.

Also, because of Ping, I can no longer put the lids on the filter tower.  He
liked to stick his nose up into the spout to drink, flipping the lids off
them, the silly clown.  Without the lids, cats can now drink from the tower,
the stream or the bowl.  Such variety!

<wanders off muttering about spoiled rotten lazy furrballs... >

That's weird, when I got my Drinkwell fountain, the instructions said to
face the charcoal side (the black side) of the filter facing towards the
spout and well so that's how I've been doing it since I've had it.

I think whether or not to use the filter depends on the mineral content of
the tap water you're using.  We have very hard water here - so much so that
there is a hard mineral build-up at the water line of the well and on the
"hump" in the middle of the well.  I'm thinking about running some vinegar
through to see if I could disolve it, but I'm leery about doing so because
I'm afraid the cats won't use it afterwards if there's the least smell of
vinegar left.

Hugs,

CatNipped