Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Walmart Special Kitty litter = clay

Searched everywhere for bentonite. Found a source 100 miles off in Birmingham, AL $12 for 50lb bags. Not good yet I needed a modest amount to supplement a DB-200 polymer treatment I'm trying. Then, the next day I find an ag store less than 5 miles away sells it for $10. Then I break out 2 25lb kitty litter bags I bought last summer and compared 'em with the bentonite.

Bentonite (benseal) small granular, spreads easily $10-$12per50lb

regular(red bag)
Special Kitty litter medium chips(2.5X's size of benzil)$6per50lb

premium (yellow bag)
Special Kitty litter med chips (2.5X's size of benzil) $8per50lb

The litter comes in 25lb bags piled up on pallets in Walmarts around Northern Alabama and also my primary residence back in Bakersfield California. I don't know it's purity but when I mix water with it in my hand, it swells and feels the same. The only difference I could see with the premium kitty litter was it had perfumy speckles. I think the $2.78 regular litter would work as well and it's a dollar per bag less.

Seems a while back someone else around Alabam was looking for bentonite. If Walmart can get clay based Special Kitty litter and with all their marketing might, sell it for less, then folks may have an alternative to expensive shipping for bentonite. Wonder if you could go in to Walmart, talk to a supervisor, drive around back and have a forklift load a pallet into your truck? Just thinking out loud.

This line of thinking isn't researched or verified, so do your own homework before investing.

Good research, SoSauty. Was that the clumping or regular litter?
You know that special fired clay that was so overpriced and used to lace the tops of potted plants got run out of business by kitty litter; which did the same thing. Soak up extra moisture, and release it when the dirt got dry.

Reminds me of the Firestone rubber pond liners in some aquaculture and Koi pond supply catalogs. The catalogs said something to the effect," Do not use the rubber that is used on roofs as it has chemicals in it that can kill your fish. It is not the same thing." Funny thing is the stuff used on roofs that looks exactly the same says it's safe for aquatic life. Only downside is it's not usually available at the building supply stores in pieces over 6 feet in diameter.

Who's kidding who here?

Rather than clay, we use pelletized sawdust for kitty litter. After use it gets dumped over the backyard fence into the cows' permanent run.

The old sawdust kitty litter spots are absolutely the best place to shock up nightcrawlers and worms for bait!

The clumping kitty litter I have examined appears to be 99.9% bentonite.

Compare kittylitter to floordry.I do believe its the same thing without the perfume.

Burgermeister; it clumps nicely when my cats piddle on it.

hey---any further reviews on this idea of using walmart kitty litter in the place of well driller quality bentonite? i'd really like to know if it works and anybody really tried using it. thanks

Have not tried it.

Never even thought of trying it. It would be interesting to do a side by side test.

Not having a ready source of bentonite I "tested" as follows:

1) I picked up 4 plastic storage containers about 12x12
2) Drilled about 1/2" holes in the bottom of containers
3) Filled each with about 5" of native soil from pond area
4) One "A" container was used for baseline and nothing was added.
One "B" container 1" layer of bentonite was added on top
One "C" container 1" layer of special kitty was added on top
One container "D" had 1" layer special kitty mixed in
in with the native soil

5) all filled to top with water

results: Container "A" leaked the fastest followed by Container "D".

6) added an additional 1" of material to containers B-D
still leaked, but much slower

7) added another 1" of material to containers B-D

Now I was looking for zero leakage, but after 2", water was only leaking a little bit.

So now I have a total of 3" of material either on top of soil or mixed in. Container D seems to leak slightly, but leakage stopped on both other containers..

I also tried this using 2 other kitty litters but they didn't really work to well.

Best of all was the water was clearer in the special kitty container. As an added bonus I had called the manufacturer and they even sent me a coupon for free litter so I could do the test.

Promise it won't soak up all the water in my pond?

Saddiegirl, outstanding experiment and posting of the results. I am sure this will be beneficial to a lot of us with seeping ponds. Was the additional material added as it was in the initial trial? ie, A with additional bentonite on top, D with additional Kitty litter mixed in, and C with additional litter on top? What were the results with C, or did D have additional product added on top. Lastly, were the last tests with new dry soil?

again thanks.

Agreed with Burger. You are on a scale with our PB resident mad scientist, Dr Frankondello. (Ewest, please insert pic)
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Since you had good results with a couple of products, it would be logical to mix up similar amounts of the litter with the soil and try it again to compare the sealing/leakage. As you probably already know, normal practice for bentonite application is to blend it with the soil.

Some DB100 would be interesting in a 5th container.

Saddiegirl, your sort of testing provides extremely helpful info. I don't know how our father's generation managed country living without the internet. Guess now we can all be 'Hobby Homesteaders' and 'Pond Meisters

Perhaps Special Kitty litter can be an alternative. Great follow up. a 1-3" layer doesn't sound bad. Genrally, a pond ought to have 12-24". (DB??)

Good idea Dave, wish I had kept some DB-100 around to do this type of test. Maybe someone else has some left over or maybe the Pond Doctors would provide a sample for these types of tests. Would be real interesting to see what the results are.

Thanks for the work.
How much does the kitty litter cost?

agree thanks for the work--would like to know results of db100 if you do the test or similar test--my pond is leaking too--cleaned out 2' of bottom and lined with 2' clay--still leaks--found soft places back of the dam and some water (where everything else was dry)---section of dam is about 100yards long 6 to 8ft high--am thinking of renting small trac hoe and digging every 10 to 15' to see if i can determine more about leakage--still will probably look at trenching and packing clay and trying to tie it in to the 2' of clay we already did. may try adding bentonite/kitty litter/to clay in trench--also may try spraying it down with db100 to seal trench--any other suggestions?? or ideas? have spent too much money on this to redig entire dam and recore --i'll fill it in first. thanks
p.s. i also mixed in 96x50lb bags bentonite ($1143) to what we thought was likely the most problem areas in my pond bottom.
so how much is special kitty for 50lb? 35k invested so far andi get sick thinking of the swimming pool i could have had for that amount. thanks again

ga pond rookie

You and I are working on the same problem. Seven out of ten times that the phone rings it is about seepage.

Lets keep working on the soultion.

Otto

hi otto--i priced special kitty and it is app. 1/2 the price of the bentonite i bought from a well company last year so i may try a combination of special kitty (SK) and db100 if i can determine it is actually 95% bentonite (it wasn't on bag i looked at--2.78/25lb in ga) --i don't particularly like the idea of having super slick pond dam walls --for sure i need to formulate a plan and get materials lined up by mid-aug. as my spring usually starts running good in oct/nov.-- my thoughts are that i'd be best served to tie my efforts in with the 2' of clay i already put in pond bottom and work on the face side of the dam although it's steep in places --i am thinking about digging out a "mini-core" trench with a back hoe or trencher and mixing SK/my soil and treating it with db100 as i put it back in the trench--then till or rake in sk+db200 on face of dam and lastly spray db 100 over juncture of 2'clay and my new effort and up possible 2 to 3' on face of dam. how's that sound? i would welcome any suggestions---i see at the beginning of this thread someone compared bentonite with SK and priced it also.

I thought I posted but must have screwed up.If Im not mistaken,shop floor dry is the same thing as kitty litter,except is doesnt have oder control(perfume) for the cats.And its considerably cheaper.

tom g--thanks where do you buy it? i have two walmarts near me that i can buy the S.kitty as much as i can haul. thanks for info if can locate shop floor dry i'll check it out. otto--any thoughts on my plan of correction? curious how you would approach this problem---thanks all.

ga pond rookie
we have been short-handed in the office the last couple of days- but will be back on track today.
call me or I will call you and spend some time on the phone.
Otto

i may use some kitty litter with db-200 mixed between existing pond bottom clay liner and "mini-core" i'm going to try to put in---then will see what results will be--i don't think it will hurt anything--i will post future mentions of any success/failure on the pond boss thread "pond holding water" under the "soil questions" section --- so as to keep from repeating myself. thanks.