# Special Kitty



## KrisAmbrose (Oct 1, 2012)

I'm attempting my first emmersed setup. I have everything I need, but the only substrate I have is clay kitty litter. I know it works well for planted tanks, but does anyone know if it will work for an emmersed setup?

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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

KrisAmbrose said:


> I'm attempting my first emmersed setup. I have everything I need, but the only substrate I have is clay kitty litter. I know it works well for planted tanks, but does anyone know if it will work for an emmersed setup?
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


Hi Kris,

I am currently using Special Kitty as a thin cap for the Miracle Grow Potting Mix that I use for the bottom layer for my emersed pots.


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## KrisAmbrose (Oct 1, 2012)

A friend showed me this link. Pretty interesting information.

Do you have any drainage in your setup, or does your soil stay most/wet all the time?

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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

as you can see from his photo, he has a water level in the done pod thingy and the plants are actually planted in a coco fiber pot. For emersed setup the soil needs to be moist. Hard to describe.... but for me i'd say it needs to be wet but not wet enough you can see the water at the surface. main thing is keeping humidity high although some plants don't need that high of a humidity. I have two emersed tanks, one using miracle grow potting soil and the other using turface. both have their pluses and downs but i think im liking turface better. it's cheap! 50 pound bag for 20 bucks!


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

It can be done, but the primary issue is its lack of nutrients—as with many substrates that utilize a high CEC to deliver nutrients, kitty litter relies on having those nutrients available through the water column. Using tap water and kitty litter without pre-loading the nutrients and maintaining their levels through dosing is a bit like trying to sustain a person by feeding them only water and newspaper shreddings—you can offer them as much they can eat, but there's still really nothing in there to live off of. 

So, if the nutrients aren't coming from your substrate, they have to come from somewhere else. Submersed plants can take in food through their leaves (and thus directly from the water column), but emersed plants don't have that luxury (our air tends to be rather devoid of usable iron, potassium, and phosphorus, for instance...). In cases such as Roy's setup, those missing elements are coming from the soil layer underneath the kitty litter.

In short, be prepared to dose ferts all the time. Growing things in inert media is the basic idea of hydroponics, but the water has to be spiked with everything the plants will need to grow.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

From what Roy told me before, he actually fertilizes his setups with general purpose plant food by miracle grow every couple of weeks.
I'm using turface right now with a layer of sphagnum moss underneath and i'm contemplating between using root tabs or just using a syringe to inject nutrients into the water level. but so far my plants have been doing fine! i haven't bought miracle gro ferts yet but i've been using some old root tabs and flourish comprehensive
one thing you may want to consider is that special kitty turns into a clay layer over time... maybe just use all potting soil? i have a second tank that uses all potting soil and it does fine. high CEC substrates is mainly useful for submersed but for the sake of neatness and convenience i decided to try a tank using turface.


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## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

The oil-dri here holds up good, I've had some submersed for over 2 years and while it does crumble under pressure and eventually get a little silty, it still has tons of texture. Based on the light reading I've done the difference is based on the type of clay used. From what I read, sodium bentonite is the type that poofs up when wet and basically breaks down into mush while calcium bentonite holds up solid. I noticed that the 'oil-dri' product local to here has multiple colors in earth tones, I don't know if that is any different than the special kitty stuff, I know they are made by the same company.


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