here are my bugs

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teppy

teppy

0
Nov 11, 2007
120
Louisiana
i am so tired of fighting bugs to where i'm just at the point of saying let them have it. every morning i wake up to this. every day i get them all out. this is real old now. i ask other people if they have bugs to this extent. i think everybody does have them, but not this bad. my pool is so balanced and it stays that way. i don't know what else i could possibly do. these bugs bite. we heard about dish detergent killing them. we get a bucket with some water and put detergent in. we dump the bugs in there after we catch them. they do die in no time. my husband figured out a way to coat the entire pool surface with dish soap. he uses a garden sprayer, but i am not sure how good this can be for my water chemistry. we just converted to SWG and i've still been making adjustments to the dial to adjust the percentage of chlorine for it to make. what you see in the photo with the bucket is what husband scooped out this morning already. the other photos show what is there still after scooping.
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Have you tried spraying the yard around the pool with a pyrethroid compound such as premethrin?

I recommend using the liquid via a garden hose sprayer until you get the bugs under control and then broadcast a granular solid periodically as a maintenance dose.

You can buy this stuff at Home Depot.
 
he sprays around the pool with something, i'm not sure what. Husband is a farmer and has access to all sorts of chemicals, some he has to be licensed to have. these bugs can fly in. they don't just crawl. i'm at a loss of what to do next. it has been dry here for a month now. its very hot too. this is our second summer with our pool and we did not have this problem last year. the only thing that i have done different since last year was put pine straw mulch instead of cypress mulch in my landscaping around my pool area. you can get a good idea of how close the flower beds are to the pool area especially behind the raised wall with the spillways. but, if that were a problem i think that the cypress mulch would be as much of an issue as the pine straw.
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In addition to the suggestions posted ... you may want to consider one of the Japanese beetle traps sold at Lowes, H Depot and WalMart. I would place it as far away from the pool as possible in order to draw them elsewhere. The pheromone which attracts them to the trap hopefully will cut down on the number which wind up in the pool and skimmers. Don't forget the knee-high panty hose over the top of the skimmer basket to catch 'em all that do manage to get in there. Good luck!

Beautiful pool, water feature and landscaping by the way :-D
 
thanks, i will read that. my borates are actually 80. i tested yesterday. i had to add borax day before yesterday to get my Ph up a bit. for some reason it was low. i think that after adding MA to get my TA down, because of the borates, my Ph did not come back up soon enough. strange, i've never had that problem before. the borates do definitely help keep my Ph down. and by the way, when i reported borates at 50, they were actually more like 65. i averaged 50 and 80 to get 65 because it was somewhere inbetween 50 and 80.


frustratedpoolmom said:
I found this post searching the forum:
http://www.troublefreepool.com/post27146.html#p27146

Though yours seem smaller, this describes these beetles as growing up to an inch. Maybe you have a nest nearby, and these are the babies. :mrgreen:

Are you sure your borates are still 50ppm?
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thanks bugg-i did go to that yesterday and was able to identify my critters. they are water scavenger beetles. it really does not tell me how to get rid of them. it says that its a problem in even well cared for pools. i may just need to spray my yard again really well. my husband has seen them drop in from above. these things don't seem to be crawling in, but instead flying in. we get them out everyday. yesterday i had so many that i may have suffered light heat stroke. my head is still aching and i don't feel very well. it would help to be able to get in the suck them up with the vacuume, but there is no way that i can think about getting in until i get most of them under control because they will bite. the way my pool looked yesterday, it took me over 2 hours just to get it to where i could get in. and then, it took me another hour or so to finish. this morning, yes, there are more again. i am just about at my wits end. i tested again this am and my water could not be better still. my numbers are:

FC-3
CC-.5
Ph-7.4
TA-80
CH-250
CYA-70-80
salt-3500
borates-80



Buggsw said:
Here is a site that you may be able to identify what the bugs are and then research to find how to get rid of them.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/60

Scrolling down through the page there are a few that look similar.
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Aha! It very well may be your mulch. You said:
the only thing that i have done different since last year was put pine straw mulch instead of cypress mulch in my landscaping around my pool
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I found this http://books.google.com/books?id=LQNf1i ... t&resnum=6

The section called plaster beetles, also known as scavenger beetles - talks about them liking straw because of mold in it. I'd perhaps remove the straw mulch and hope there is no other mold source nearby.
 
well, i did my overnight chlorine test last night. i actually was hoping in a way that i would have lost alot of FC, but that was not the case. i had 4.5 ppm late yesterday afternoon right before dark, and i had 4ppm early this am. shocking would have been an easy fix and atleast an answer. i am just dumbfounded now as to what to do. i guess i can try removing my pine straw and see what happens. i did a search on google though and pine straw is very common and used near swimming pools in landscaping. as a matter of fact, its preferred because of its ability to 'stay put'. it does not track onto the deck when walked on and does not float in excess amounts of rain, or blow away in the wind. i do have a strong suspicion that it could be the drought we are experiencing here. the other day we got a small amount of rain, not much. the next day you could not find a bug in my pool. i was ecstatic. :party: i had alot of frogs but no bugs. this happened the day after posting this thread, but i did not report here that my bug problem was over because i wanted to wait one more day. sure enough they were back more than ever the next day. thats the day that i spent over 2 hours on the edge of the pool getting them out and then another hour or so in the pool getting them out. i had a terrible headache and felt really bad afterwards, probably from too much sun.

My pool is so clean and well kept. this is about to drive me nuts. :grrrr:
 
I don't want to go off topic here but I want to address your headaches. I live up in the panhandle of Florida and it has been deathly hot here too. I am guessing but I would have to say you need to drink more water when out working in the heat. Dehydration can make you feel like c rap to include headaches. I'll drink about a liter an hour when out working in the sun.
 
thanks-
i know better. i just got caught up in those darn bugs. i work out everyday and do know the importance of drinking lots of water. thanks for reminding me though. yes, its so hot. i think we are about to put some kind of cooler on our pool. Husband is wanting a mister system too. my pool is so uncomfortable i don't even want to get in it. have a happy 4th!

frankgh said:
I don't want to go off topic here but I want to address your headaches. I live up in the panhandle of Florida and it has been deathly hot here too. I am guessing but I would have to say you need to drink more water when out working in the heat. Dehydration can make you feel like c rap to include headaches. I'll drink about a liter an hour when out working in the sun.
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