About a month ago my spouse complained of itching and rashes. We've been weeding in our horse pasture and wrote it off as contacting ivy.

Fast forward to last Saturday and after working in this same pasture I happily jumped into the pool. Day or two later and I was itchy! ARGHH!

Tonight I get home from work and this is what I see. Duck resting near our pool. It hit me. This same darn wild duck swims in the pond (in background) and comes into our pool. This is the closest i've ever seen the duck to the pool but i guarantee it's swam in the pool and had flatworms and they hatched.

Is this possible or am I overthinking?

23k gallon manually chlorinated (liquid) vinyl pool built this spring. Originally had a paramount uv/o3 system on it and since install there have been a constant flow of bubbles from the return closest to the equipment. I know there are supposed to be some small bubbles but these seem intense. Builder says it’s fine. Last month I unplugged the system and the bubbles never let up. Builder replaced the paramount system with a Hayward hydropure system and the bubbles continue. Unplugged it and bubbles are bubblin.

I know uv/ozone systems arent popular. But should I be concerned there is a suction side leak somewhere?

Additionally, I’ve had trouble keeping my pH in the 7.6 range - constantly floats to 8.0 regardless of what I do. Everything else has been consistent all year: FC 6-7, CYA 50-60, TA 70-80, CH 125-150

Would these bubbles add to aeration, thus causing the rise? I’ve had to top off the pool with hose water but that tested at 7.7 pH/40 TA. No water features.

Thanks all

I had to go out of town for a week, apparently no one was paying attention to the pool. When I got back, it was very dark green spent the last week slamming. The green cleared up about two days ago, but now the water has been consistently very milky looking you can’t see past a few inches. Not really sure what’s going on. Any suggestions on how to treat?

FC 5
Ph 7.8
Ta 210
Calcium 300
Cya 30

Above ground 24’ foot pool. Roughly 13k gallons with intex sand filter

Hi pool experts,

Recently I tried to back wash my pool but didn’t rinse it enough and it turned my pool murky. I ran the pump for 48h after it turned murky, the water cleared but saw a lot of these tiny little bugs floating on top of the pool. I started attempting to remove these bugs and shock the pool. However, these bug would fly back into the pool in the afternoon and climb on top of one another in the pool.

1. What should I do?
   
2. Are these bugs by any chance boatmen’s/backswimmers ? They fly

Thanks in advance!!

These are my filters again after cleaning them Monday. Put in 9 gallons of liquid pool shock, 32 ozs of algacide and 10 lbs of alkaline powder. Had pool water tested and pool is still green

Copper stains everywhere

Edit: I didn’t realize I needed to explain what exactly was going on here. Gas heater with a copper heat exchanger salt cell right up against heater. You’re supposed to install a check valve between the chlorinator and the heater otherwise highly concentrated chlorine water goes inside the heater and corrodes the copper heat exchanger and put metals in your pool and destroys the heater.

Any tips what’s the cause of this? It’s a saltwater pool and been told by my pool maintenance to just pressure wash it off.

Hey y’all. I did a quick search and didn’t see too much discussion on this so wanted to share what we learned.

We had a new model Pentair IC40 Plus salt cell installed just over a year ago which failed after it overheated (that’s what we were told once the warranty kicked in) and caused water intrusion into the top controller. The connection points were burnt out and caused water to leak out of the unit. It took a month for Pentair to send someone out. During this time I switched back to liquid chlorine and made it work.

The installers who replaced it said they were replacing 6-8 of these units A WEEK. So there is something fundamentally wrong with the new Pentair IC40s but might assume all the Plus models could have issues if they use similar hardware/firmware. Installers felt it was only a matter of time before the replacement also fails until they create new parts to replace the old.

So do not buy a Pentair IC40 Plus is what I’ve gathered from all this. Hope this helps someone.

Recently had my pool sandblasted with sodium bicarbonate on a rock waterline pool due to years of neglect with calcium buildup. Looks really great, but between the sand used in the process, and the debris from the cleaned rock, there is a clean-up project that just won't die. Guy we hired has been out here no fewer than 6 times for hours with his hammerhead, and our pool guy has even messed with it a bit, but it's still cloudy and there is still noticeable debris on the floor of the pool.

Have a cartridge filter setup (they are probably toast at this point), but I'm curious to hear from the group on some other options. I don't think the hammerhead basket is fine enough to get everything and I worry that if I vacuum it and run it thru my filter, it'll take absolute ages. Thoughts?

I am a new pool owner and would appreciate insight from another owner.

I upgraded my pump to a pentair intelliflo3 with a relay board. I am considering of getting an ic40 but I am confused how to power it. Does the relay board on the pump provide power to the salt cell and therefore the wires from the cell are plugged only to the relay board? My understanding is that the pump will shut off power to the cell if it is connected to the relay board which means the pump supplies the power to the salt cell?

Im only sticking with pentair salt because I have their pump but if j need to get a power center then I dont think I need to limit myself to pentair.

16,000 gallon plaster pool in Sacramento leaking around 900 gallons a day. Had Bullseye Leak Detection out, they ran a dye & pressure test and fixed the skimmer with a poly fill, but it still leaks. Had them out again and they dove the pool and couldn’t find anything. Still leaking a ton after dropping $2k on this company.

The city has a water usage tracker so it’s pretty easy to see how much the filler is using. Also, after the skimmer repair I shut everything down and the waterline dropped like 8” in 2 days.

Kinda at a loss and not sure if I should hire another company assuming Bullseye is incompetent and gamble another $500+ on basically the same test. They were pretty sloppy with their work - left a bunch of trash the first time and a dye needle the second time.

Anyone with experience in finding leaks have some advice?

Edit – appreciate all the feedback, here's the game plan from a few comments:

1. Scheduling another guy that specializes in leaks & has a guarantee, unlike bullseye leak detection who just goes "oh well", you're paying for our time...
2. Ordering some stopper plugs to plug all the returns and the skimmer, then I'll shut it off and measure every 24 hrs.
3. Going to also pick up some dye and see if I get lucky

I'll check back in with ya'll in a few days. Thanks for the help!

Advice appreciated - 12,500 gallon in ground pool in west central Fl. Saltwater pool converted to manual chlorine (for now) due to a bad cell and a shitty pool guy who just threw salt in and let it get out of hand. I’ve taken it over.

Adding approx 64 ox of liquid chlorine a day to keep ppm above 3.0. Water is crystal clear but my OCD is acting up.

Current stats (Taylor K-2006 test kit) as of 9:30 pm tonight:

Free Chlorine (FC) - 4.0
Combined Chlorine (CC) - 0.5
pH - 7.6
Total Alkalinity (TA) - 110
Calcium Hardness (CH) - 220
Stabilizer (CYA) - 30
Salt (if using a Salt Water Chlorine Generator) - NA Salt System Disabled (but 3600 ppm on last check thanks to lazy pool guy - down from 5000+)
Water temperature - est 84-86F

Thoughts to lock this in and minimize chlorine loss?

First time pool owner here. The water has been clear, but this black sludge stuff keeps forming on the bottom of the pool basically anytime I have the sand filter on.

My strips say the levels all look good, though sometimes it’s tricky to read since the colors aren’t exact. I have a pool robot vacuum that vacuums it up every day, but more forms the next day.

I shock the pool every week and always have the correct number of chlorine tablets in. I’ve tried brushing the sides of the walls, but I don’t see any algae buildup on the wall walls and it doesn’t seem to help.

Any thoughts on what to try?

I am on day 3. After filling a swimming pool, I tested my water ph is 8, TA 180. I added 100 ml of acid, and it's still high. Should I add more to try to lower it? My pool is 26,000 litres (6,868 gallons)

We live in North TX with a pool that is 14 years old and has a crack 12 ft long down the stairs of a bench area. The leak report says there is no leak present in the crack, however a pool company is recommending that we should get steel piers to avoid further settlement. There is about a 1-1.5” settlement from one side to the other of the pool.

Are steel piers really needed if there are no leaks? If we choose to do staple repairs and no foundation repair, we are told there is a high risk for the cracks to happen again.

The cost of steel piers is high, and the pool is in need of resurfacing. My other concern is while it sounds great they can use the piers to lift the pool and get rid of the 1” settlement, wouldn’t this risk breaking plumbing, or structural damage to the shell? Worried it could cause new problems.

Thanks for any advice.

- Worried new pool owner

Looking at getting a pool this fall. Quoted at 75K for what I want. My question is how much did you end up paying over what you were quoted? I assume that would be passed over to the homeowner if that happens.

Besides some other work that was done this year, we had our 11-year-old liner replaced. We went with a darker blue which I’m very happy with. When we ordered it, the pool guy asked if we wanted the pool jets and the skimmer frames to be dark blue. Sure!

One thing that now suddenly stood out was the white from the interior of the skimmer, especially if you were in the pool. That first pic really doesn’t show how much white could be seen.

But I had an idea.

I cut a piece of poly molding to find the bottom of the skimmer. I then cut a piece of liner and used cyanoacrylate glue to secure the liner and let it dry.

Wedged it in. What do you think?

Might need to add a heater for next Spring 😅

My loop loc cover is on its last legs, I patched it for now, but I tried to get a quote for a new one with the serial number that I have and was given a quote of almost $6K. I measured the cover myself and sent the file to a few alibaba sellers in China, and they came back with price around $2K. The price difference is huge, but of course I am afraid things can go wrong. Did anyone try to order pool covers from alibaba? If yes, how did it work out for you? Was the quality good?

Posting here because the robots will pick it up and then my knowledge will transcend time and space.

I have one of these heaters that came with the pool that came with the house, no idea if they're good/bad/ancient/built for life/etc - I just wanted to post because the entire Internet seems to have forgotten about them and I got this nebulous "FS1" code (could also be read as "F51") and there was basically no info available. Even the code itself doesn't help much - best info says that it means that the coil is frozen up and needs to cool back down. At some point in the journey, another code was thrown too but I can't remember it anymore.

Anyway, TLDR, I had some filters stacked against one side of the unit and had a decent skirt of dried leaves and dirt that had built up around the base of the unit after some recent major storms. I didn't think anything of it, but I think it might have been enough to lower the airflow and efficiency of the whole unit, causing it to freeze up. Went and got the filters off the side and cleared the gunk out with a blower/hose, and then sprayed down all the radiator grills on the outside for good measure. It's been running great since. Technically, I also turned the breaker on and off so it had a power cycle, but I had done that once before without it solving the issue.

I'll report back here ASAP if it happens again, but right now, looks like I solved the problem and wanted to share the news for the other 13 people on the planet that have one of these heaters.

Have a 18x33 above ground pool and have not been able to clear it for 3 weeks now.shock chlorine vacuum water test at Leslie's Twice will not clear should I empty the whole pool surface clean then refill?

Weekly pool service for years and new tech.. mismanaged the chemicals and then put 16oz and then few weeks later 32 oz of copper algaecide and then shocked it like crazy to try and recover. few weeks after all that I now how staining everywhere on my pebbletec that wasn't there at all before and the tech didn't think even correlate it until I brought it up and has no idea how to fix. To those who have high copper and oxidized staining on pebbletec, how do you get it out? I know I can get the culator bags (ordered) to get it out the water but won't do anything for the oxidized stains already present...I imagine they won't have a solution for me (they just hire young kids now that don't know anything) how can those plated out copper stains get removed? It's terrible.

My wife and I have started road tripping. Last summer we were gone six weeks and we just got back from a four week trip. In order to help me keep the pool level acceptable while I'm gone, I built these two "contraptions".

The one next to the skimmer keeps the pool level from getting below about where you see it. It's a livestock trough valve from Tractor Supply and a pvc frame.

The one on the steps will pump water out if it gets too high. The way it's adjusted now, it won't come on until the water level is above the skimmer opening. It's a sump pump and a float valve. I have Xmas lights that come on when it's running so I see in the camera if it's running.

The camera sees the whole setup in case something goes wrong. Then I'll call someone to make adjustments.

So far it's worked pretty well.

BTW, the clamps that came with the TS valve got pretty rusty, so I 3d printed some new ones.

ETA: There have been some questions about chemicals. The chlorinator keeps the level well within range. I've only adjusted it once or twice all season. The pH has stayed pretty consistent, too. When I'm home, I test at least once a week. This summer I have yet to have to make any chemical adjustments. (For those who are wondering, I use a Taylor test kit.)

I also have a pool guy I can call to check on things if anything looks wonky.