Drinking Fountain - the Proper Way to Cleaning It

The girls have got two drinking fountains. About a month ago, water was not flowing out over the dome of one of them, even after we re-fitted the parts and adjusted the position of the fountain a few times. The fountain is not cheap so I was very reluctant to put it into "retirement". I thought of getting a replacement pump so I googled online to look for the supplier but I couldn't find the particular model. I then looked up the Hagen website (manufacturer of the DogIt/CatIt drinking fountain) and almost wanted to send in an enquiry on getting a replacement pump until I came across the user's guide. Under the FAQ section in the guide, the troubleshooting method to getting the fountain to work again is to dismantle the outer section of the pump and do a thorough cleaning to remove the build-up of minerals that have accumulated over time. I followed the instructions and viola, the dome was working again. I also cleaned up the other fountain and the water flow was better than before. Such thorough cleaning should be done once every two weeks.

When I pulled out 'A' from 'B' and looked inside 'B', there were some bits of gunk in 'B' which I cleaned out with a toothbrush.

This is the side of the pump with the wire. Only the cover can be removed so you can give the surface a good scrub with the toothbrush.

This is the other side of the pump. Previously, our cleaning ended with scrubbing this side and the corners with the toothbrush.

From the user's guide, I discovered the cover can actually be removed. I was taken aback by the amount of gunk that have accumulated both on the pump (photo on the left - this is the view after the cover has been removed) and the inner of the cover (photo on the right). It was quite disgusting :(

The centre part of the pump (circled in red in photo on left) can be pulled out, ie the bullet-looking thing in the photo on right (circled in red). There was also gunk on it. The guide says to gently wash it (I rinsed it under a running tap).

So the trick in getting the pump to be working optimally again is to clean these three parts:

I'm glad the domes are working optimally again. I can't find the user's guide that came with the fountain when we bought it. I felt quite bad on the neglience on our/my part. I shuddered at the thought of the amount of gunk. I've taken and posted detailed photos here so if you've got a similar drinking fountain/dome, I'd strongly recommend that you do the same thorough cleaning (once every two weeks).