Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I’ve had this fountain for a couple of months and wanted to give it some use before writing a review. Initially, it worked fine. My cats immediately started using it and all was well. And then a few days in I noticed the water flow had reduced to a very thin and slow trickle. So I took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together and started it up. Again, everything was fine...until a few days in. About 3 days and then the same reduction in water flow. My first assumption was that I had a defective pump so I replaced it with a new one. Had the same results. When I took it apart for cleaning I couldn’t find any blockages. I finally decided to leave out the carbon filter since I fill the fountain with filtered water. And that solved the problem. It’s been working great since I did that. The pump is just not strong enough to draw water through the carbon filter. And yes, I did change that filter to see if it was the problem. The unit still ran slow and struggled with a new carbon filter. My cats really like this fountain and use it constantly. The reason I’m only rating it 1 star is because I went through a lot of hassle to figure out the problem. That should not be necessary for a $75 fountain. And if you live somewhere where you need the carbon filter for your water I would not recommend this item. Please don’t ignore the reviews where people struggled with this issue and in some cases wound up throwing away the fountain. I believe that a lot of them had the same problem I did and thought the entire unit was defective. It’s a decent fountain, just don’t plan on using the carbon filter.