Cat Litter For Gnats

[BilgePump]

Gnats , we all hate them. They are an annoyance.

 

We at Pump towers are infested right now, we repotted a few things recently and we've been sowing seeds for the coming year (also I've copped a few in the house and garden bat special recently) yellow traps have been deployed and they are covered in gnats, leaf tips and bits of cat ... Not ideal..

As anyone who has dropped into my diary will know we've got a few cats of various ages and abilities so we keep a couple of litter trays about the house, we also have a load(!) of houseplants, some of which are cacti.. bare with me..

I like trichocereus (echinopsis if yer a snob like) and a few other desert type cacti and try to keep them as happy as I can so I watch YouTube videos and it turns out people are using cat litter as substrate, namely moler clay cat litter like this

Now as I understand it moler clay is a mixture of diatom shells and smectite clay ... isn't that basically diatomaceous earth? Chime in if you have a definitive answer by all means folks.

 

I'm gonna be top dressing with this stuff

It's about 14 quid for 30L , if it works I'll be using a lot more of it.

I shall let you lot know how we get on , right now there's gnats in my coffee

 

(Cat owners fwiw moler clay is incredibly absorbent and very low odour litter , get on it)

 

ATB BilgePump

 

 

[MindSoup]

40 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

isn't that basically diatomaceous earth?

 

Used to work in an animal feed shop and yes some types of cat litter are essentially diatomaceous earth. Not sure how much you bag weighs but DE is about 2 quid a kilo if you buy a big bag. 

[BilgePump]

I've used some already but I'll go weigh what's left , two seconds....

 

[MindSoup]

Under 50p a litre for yours, I reckon it  probably does come in cheaper TBF. 

[BilgePump]

So out of this bag I've done 4 litter changes and there's still exactly 9kg in the bag according to a set of dial scales I used to weigh carp with

 

[KC]

Wait until the cat does a big shit in your plant pot, that'll learn ya! 

[BilgePump]

@KCffs I hadn't factored that into account

 

Tbf our 4 have been through that phase already and we top dress the bigger plants like the yucca, cheese and some of the Philo's with cobblestones for just that reason

 

[KC]

I'll have a look for that moler clay stuff at the pet shop, I use (well the cats use it) the wooden stuff but it's gone from £3.50 to £5.50 for 10 ltrs. Piss taking bastards.

[BilgePump]

@KC We were using CJ's wood pellets and they were costing me 14.99 for a 30L sack from the local farm/country store and it's not gone up much recently , I get the clay stuff from the same place as well which is handy.

 

[BilgePump]

Well folks I'm back

 

I can confirm moler clay cat litter destroys fungus gnats in days

 

My "secret houseplant" window I keep undocumented arrivals in was looking like the air space above Heathrow.... Now it's lockdown quiet in there and I only top dressed the big aspidistra and a tray of baby sedum × rubrotinctum.

 

+1 for sanicat pink/ kittyfriend pink.... >£15 for 30L and it looks nice as a top dress (bit similar to smashed leca)

 

Fwiw it has to be non clumping natural moler clay, hence the two "pink" brands , the yellow or grey clumping alternatives by the same manufacturers are not what you're looking for.

 

I hope this helps someone at some point, or at least saves people a few quid along the way

 

ATB BilgePump