Cat drinking?

dothedew · Mar 3, 2005

Is it ok to let my cat drink out of the filter? He likes it so much that he won't even stop when I'm yelling, and he's been going for a few minutes.

keane · Mar 3, 2005

God only knows!! :blink:

Must like the fishy taste!!

If he likes it so much (and you don't have a problem with the cat drinking it!) why not just take a bowlful of tank water out and give him that instead so he doesn't bother with the filter??

Not sure what harm it would do to the cat but as long as your fish are ok.......!!!??

Heh heh

steve 8)

LoachLover · Mar 3, 2005

Doesn't seem like the smartest thing, but I really don't know.

One_Trick_Pony · Mar 3, 2005

yeah im nt covninced thats a good idea, just think of all the crap in the water the filter is there to remove

LoachLover · Mar 3, 2005

One_Trick_Pony said:
yeah im nt covninced thats a good idea, just think of all the crap in the water the filter is there to remove

Waste especially

Inchworm · Mar 3, 2005

Hi dothedew

Doesn't your filter have a cover that you can put on it? :unsure:

My cat will not drink water from a dish, only from my tanks. I gave up even trying to get her to do anything but play with water I put on the floor for her.

When she is thirsty, she will climb up on one of the tanks and put her paw into the water while she is drinking. Then she walks down the front of whichever tank it is and leaves little paw prints all over the glass. :grr:

Sometimes she will drink out of the filter too. Since she is almost 2 years old, I doubt that doing this has hurt her any.

Invader675 · Mar 3, 2005

One of my cats loves my new fish tank. She is so light and tiny she can sleep on the cover and it doesn't even bend (it's only a Juwel cover) but my other cat is so scared of my tank! I've no idea why, it's silent. I think he just needs a big hug.
Has anyone else noticed that with a fish tank in a room when they touch a pet they get bigger more frequent static shocks? Poor babies.

WILDER · Mar 3, 2005

Cats never drink clean water in a dish, mine drink from a jug I have my fish net standing in when I've used it, also they drink the digusting water in the water feature, and my dads cat drinks his pond water.

Synirr · Mar 3, 2005

My cat drinks out of every betta bowl within her reach... she literally gets up on my desk and goes from bowl to bowl, taking a sip out of each.

DannyBoy17 · Mar 3, 2005

Synirr said:
My cat drinks out of every betta bowl within her reach... she literally gets up on my desk and goes from bowl to bowl, taking a sip out of each.

Mine does the same. Silly cat!

I also caught mine "tight-roping" it across the 100g one day...The Oscar almost had a feild day, and a feast!

--Dan

RandomWiktor · Mar 3, 2005

Betta Bowls should be covered so they don't jump out or get eaten/knocked over by the cat ....

We JUST talked about this in nutrition class. How big is the bowl your cat drinks from? Most cat dishes are of a size that cats dislike as the water stales very rapidly. Usually, if you buy them a nice big bowl meant for a mastiff or something ( :lol:

) they're drink out of it. However, once the habit of drinking from fishbowls is set in place, its hard to break.
I would not reccomend letting the cat drink from the fish bowl because fish can carry parasites and zoonoses, fecal matter isn't particularly good to be drinking, and various things you add to the water (anti-biotics, pro-biotics, aquarium salt, etc.) as well as things naturally in the water from fish or cycling probably aren't very good for your cat's GI.
The other possibility is that your cat prefers running water. If you really want her to stop, you could probably get one of those expensive bowls that keep water streaming.
Finally, your cat's saliva might not be good for the fish because it is LOADED with bacteria.

CathyG · Mar 3, 2005

My cats (both aged 13 years) have NEVER drunk tap water. They have always preferred rain water.

That said, before I got my Python, I used to syphon my tank water out onto my patio - the cats had a field day!

nc_nutcase · Mar 3, 2005

when I was a kid my sisters cat used to eat it's own poop because it was embarrassed to have someone clean up after it (at least thats what we thought because when she went to clean it the cat would hide for at least an hour. So if they eat their own solid poop... how bad can a little filter water be?

gwlee7 · Mar 3, 2005

One of my four cats is drinking out of the toliet even as I was reading this thread. The reason know this is because I just heard the lid slam back closed. Cats........ :crazy: