Leaves and Bugs won't skim

[nsbohn]

I've got an in ground pool, vinyl liner, 13,000 gals approx, with a double layer waterfall thats about 5 feet tall, and a waterslide made from plaster and concrete thats about 6 feet tall. Pool is enclosed with a screen enclosure. Pool has one main drain at the bottom of the deep end, and one skimmer, just above the main drain between the waterfall and the slide, both of which dump into the deep end. The two returns which rarely get used are in the shallow end.

I suspect that if I were to turn off the waterfall, and turn off the waterslide, the skimmer may function more effectively, but we like the ambiance of the waterfall and its helps keep my PH up, which for whatever reason I have trouble with, even though I'm following the PoolMath for several months now. Only had one Algaebloom and SLAM session, and that was when the pool pump failed. Murphy's law, it happened to fail a few days after we had the pool cage pressure washed so it got pretty bad but we're back right now.

Any suggestions on additional equipment or changes to my setup that would enable me to skim the small bugs and such off the surface more efficiently? Is there such a thing as an automatic skimmer like the automatic vacuums that will just cruise around my pool eating up the bugs and small debris that I can empty every so often?

 

[cowboycasey]

Welcome to TFP

There is usually a 3 way valve that can be moved more to skim than pulling from the main drain. For me I run my "pool cleaner/Poolvergnuegen" constantly and he cleans everything up..

The one thing that caught my attention is the PH going down, that is not normal around here and really not normal for someone having a slide and waterfall going all the time. Could you post up some numbers from your test kit.. I am thinking your TA may be very low..