Tank setup problem - Kitty litter substrate "puffing up"

Would love some help.... Am in the midst of setting up a 10 Gallon tank
which is going to be planted/low-maintenance acquarium. Plan for
substrate was as follows 1in kitty litter (walmart special kitty)
terraced up to 1.5 inches towards the rear of the tank. Litter would
have a little bit of Jobe's for fertilizer. Then a uniform 2 in layer
play sand on top of that.

After reading up a lot i decided not to rinse the litter first and put
it straight in. Levelled it at approximately 1in. Scattered small
pieces of Jobe's spikes very deep - i.e. at the bottom of the
substrate. Propbably was about 1.5 spikes total cut into small bits.
Then I gradually added water..... Plan was to let it absorb the water
and settle a bit.... then later I would add a little more towards the
rear of the tank to "terrace".... so that there would never be less
than 1 in litter. After that was planning to add the sand layer after
this bottom one was stable and had dried a bit (e.g. tomorrow
sometime).

WELL added the water and Suprise - the litter more than doubled in
capacity..... it's now about 2.5in and I was planning to have 3-3.5in
total substrate after the sand layer. The water is pretty much absorbed
except for a few pools on the surface. Is the kitty litter layer going
to recede or did i just make an awful mistake and need to remove at
least half of it before it dries? Should I really have only places
0.3/0.5in dry litter to start?

I really thought that I had researched this to exhaustion before
starting, but apparently not enough.

Opinions welcome and needed!

Thanks!

On 8 Apr 2006 23:37:37 -0700, wrote:

Would love some help.... Am in the midst of setting up a 10 Gallon tank
which is going to be planted/low-maintenance acquarium. Plan for
substrate was as follows 1in kitty litter (walmart special kitty)
terraced up to 1.5 inches towards the rear of the tank. Litter would
have a little bit of Jobe's for fertilizer. Then a uniform 2 in layer
play sand on top of that.

After reading up a lot i decided not to rinse the litter first and put
it straight in. Levelled it at approximately 1in. Scattered small
pieces of Jobe's spikes very deep - i.e. at the bottom of the
substrate. Propbably was about 1.5 spikes total cut into small bits.
Then I gradually added water..... Plan was to let it absorb the water
and settle a bit.... then later I would add a little more towards the
rear of the tank to "terrace".... so that there would never be less
than 1 in litter. After that was planning to add the sand layer after
this bottom one was stable and had dried a bit (e.g. tomorrow
sometime).

WELL added the water and Suprise - the litter more than doubled in
capacity..... it's now about 2.5in and I was planning to have 3-3.5in
total substrate after the sand layer. The water is pretty much absorbed
except for a few pools on the surface. Is the kitty litter layer going
to recede or did i just make an awful mistake and need to remove at
least half of it before it dries? Should I really have only places
0.3/0.5in dry litter to start?

I really thought that I had researched this to exhaustion before
starting, but apparently not enough.

Opinions welcome and needed!

Thanks!
I've used an inch of kitty litter under gravel several times and it
didn't expand like you describe. Are you certain that your kitty
litter is 100% clay with nothing, no super absorbers etc added? (and a
few swirls through the rinse bucket saves a lot of time and filter
media when filling the tank.)

Your covering the entire tank bottom with play sand is another issue -
if you've read my recent posts, you'll know that I have used small
areas of sand substrate, but never a whole tank. All sorts of
questions come to mind about cleaning, anaerobic pockets, etc. Tell me
more.

-- Mister Gardener

hi mister
yes i'm positive i used the right litter - i researched this very
carefully
it's plain clay and it's a brand that has been used repeatedly and
successfully
i found material going either way (concerning rinsing) so i chose not
to to simplify things - appears to have been a mistake
this is going to be my 1st time w- sand on top.... but many many people
use it for an entire tank - here are examples of setup
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...58ea0b86 6310
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...035c8bfd a010

On 9 Apr 2006 06:44:18 -0700, "fa" wrote:

hi mister
yes i'm positive i used the right litter - i researched this very
carefully
it's plain clay and it's a brand that has been used repeatedly and
successfully
i found material going either way (concerning rinsing) so i chose not
to to simplify things - appears to have been a mistake
this is going to be my 1st time w- sand on top.... but many many people
use it for an entire tank - here are examples of setup
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...58ea0b86 6310
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...035c8bfd a010

Well, I suppose you could just scoop out the extra clay that you don't
want. I can't think of anything that would cause it to reduce to its
original size, you haven't added the sand on top yet, have you? I read
the links you sent above, thanks for finding them, I've been meaning
to go on a search for them one of these days. I don't see anyone else
mentioning the kitty litter expansion problem. And I really don't
recall having similar problems myself.

-- Mister Gardener