How Full Should My Cat Fountain Be?

…A customer called recently, perplexed that her No-spout Piazza fountain didn’t pump the water all the way up into the Piazza basin any more. The water would come part way up and stop. This was strange as we knew her fountain to have the best possible and a very robust pump. She had had the fountain several months and this problem had only recently begun to occur.

To us it didn’t add up so we began asking questions such as what is the length of the vinyl and the flow setting the pump was on. Nothing had changed about the vinyl and even a high pump setting failed to resolve the issue. 

It occurred then to ask how full the bowl was. ‘A couple of inches’ we were told and right away the problem was obvious. We asked that she put more water into the bowl. “How full should my cat fountain be?” She asked. “Preferably to a half inch or inch below the rim”, we told her, which she did while we were on the phone with her. The problem vanished.

With not enough water covering the pump it begins to pump air as not enough water is getting into the pump. You can hear this when it happens and in the video below.

So, in this instance, and this is not uncommon, a simple five minute phone conversation resolved a very perplexing and annoying problem. They’re not all that easy but there is no issue that can’t and won’t be resolved. Email us. Call us. We will  help.