Cat Chat Feline Forum

I purchased the Cat Mate cat fountain. It works great, except that there is a clear/white foam that occurs quite often. I called support and they were of no help. Has anyone else had this issue.?

It mght be residual dishwashing liquid (washing up liquid)

I have the plastic version I think there are other types.

I wash mine with fairy liquid every few days then rinse it all in clean water, or put the whole top and bottom excluding the filter and pump in the dishwasher. If I do the latter I wash and rinse the pump and filter by hand as they are not dishwasher suitable.
I use a fine bottle brush on the pump around the motor spindle and an old toothbrush to clean the crevices.
I don't rely on the filter to remove impurities in the water, I use water from a BRITA type filter jug, because cats don't like the chlorine that is in tap water.
I only regard the filter as something to intercept debris like cat hair or other dirt, so I don't change the filter at the recommended intervals only when the gauze debris trap starts to deteriorate.

I had exactly the same model as Papacat's and I found it had a brownish froth sometimes but mine never saw a drop of detergent of any kind. I found the brown froth was less when I left out the filter. In the end I decided it was much too difficult to clean thoroughly and have placed glasses of water on the table and cat tree, as well as the dog's bowls on the floor, and she drinks what she wants when she wants.

Bear in mind with cats it's not a simple matter of the more they drink the better. Their urine is supposed to be concentrated and acidic to kill bacteria that cause crystals and UTIs. Unless there is a specific problem or you feed mostly dry, water available in a choice of places they like (some won't drink next to their food, for example) should be perfectly adequate for them.

We had one of the plastic ones for a while, and while it was used, it wasn't that popular and in the end was replaced with just a ceramic bowl. We never had any problem with it foaming though. It could be differences in types of water, we are in a very hard water area with a fair bit of iron in it, orange scale is constant battle here, it could be that a different water make up could produce the foam as the different chemicals react with something in the filter, the pump or the plastic.

We have a plastic fountain and the foam also appears from time to time. I'm curious if this foam can cause the vomiting? I examined the possible reasons, but there is nothing about the water and more so about foam. Has anybody experienced the same?