Debris in pool. Is this normal?

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kgolby

0
Jun 23, 2009
21
Jax, FL
I will preface this post - I'm very anal with my pool water so I might have unrealistic expectations.

Is it normal to have debris (small bugs, dog hair, grass, etc...) in your pool all the time? I knew before our pool was completed dog hair would be an issue. Have 2 black Labs. In the shallow end there's always a lot of debris at the top of the pool. Is it coming from the dog hair? Pool is screened in so could it be particles floating in the air that get through the fine screen? I'm just wondering if our skimmer works properly. It's located in the deep end and rarely is it dirty. I'll empty the basket and may have some dog hair and bugs in it but nothing like I skim out on a daily basis with the pool net. If this is normal than I'll just except it and do my daily cleaning. If it isn't then I need to contact my PB and see if there is something they can fix.
 
I'm no expert but I do have dogs swimming in my pool but only during their 1-2 hour supervised swim time. I don't, though, have a screen enclosure but our silt is fine enough to go through screen along with some bugs.

My Doodles are 1/2 lab and do shed some but not as much as a full Lab. My daughter had a Lab for 15 years who stayed with us a lot and was in the pool whenever she could get to it. She shed in massive amounts although she was brushed regularly.

I've always had some dogs that use the pool. Most of the hair ends up in the skimmer sock. As do most of the bugs and finer floating debris. The sand and silt, though, ends up at the bottom of the shallow end and down the steep decline to deep end. Given enough time, some sand and silt, will make it to deep end and form a big ring, about 10 ft diameter, around the very deepest part, with main drain in the middle of it. BUT I have one sweep or cleaner running daily for about 10 hours. I have the Polaris 280 and the iRobot equivalent of the Aquabot Turbo T-Jet.

First thing I would check out is why the predominately floating debris doesn't make it to the skimmer. My skimmer is super strong, maybe even more than "normal", so my view of "what a skimmer should do" may be slanted.

How often and how long are you running your cleaner? Are you sure it is picking up as it should?

I've ordered a Tracker 4X for just the reasons as your issue but basically sand/silt. It works basically as yours does. I need it because, I too, am "anal" about the pool and the other two cleaners can't get the extremely fine silt, about 1 lb damp a day, in the shallow end without a lot of intervention from me.

I'm sure others will comment and ask pertinent questions to help you solve this issue. :)

gg=alice
 
I'm a bit embarrassed :oops: to say this but I have a PoolSkim. Purchased in 2007 but pool was "down" late 2007 through Sept 2008 and I haven't installed it yet. Gonna get on that.

Also check out this thread located at http://www.troublefreepool.com/has-anyone-used-poolskim-t1076.html

Especially this post


AnnaK said:
yinyang37 said:


I have a lot of pollen on top of my pool and in searching for a solution I came across a product called POOLSKIM.

Has anyone used this or heard about it?
Click to expand...



I bought one from InTheSwim.com (I'd make this a clickable link but haven't figured out how, yet) last week. Kind of pricey at $79.99 plus shipping, but I did have it the next day which appealed to my sense of instant gratification :)

It is well worth the money!

We have three dogs who swim several times daily and the amount of dog hair in the skimmer sock was enormous. Moreover, what hair didn't make it into the skimmer would sink to the bottom and had to be scooped out every morning. I run my pump at night for 6 hours and during dog swim session but really only caught a fraction of the hair.

With the PoolSkim, I've reduced nighttime filtration to 4 hours but run the pump for an hour after each session. I have NOT had any dog hair on the bottom of the pool since I installed this device. This is an astonishing difference -- after two years of manually skimming and scooping hair, I'm in heaven!

Another change is that there's no longer any silt/dirt/dust on the bottom of the pool in the mornings but the skimmer sock is 'dirtier' than it had been before. This is the result of a change in water circulation. The catcher sock on the PoolSkim is at an approximately 40° angle to the pool wall and 6" or so below the water surface. Previously, I directed the eyeball to either skim across the water or, if I was mixing chemicals, down toward the bottom. Our pool is an oval and I now seem to get better circulation in the bottom levels, which means the skimmer sock catches the fine debris better and the PoolSkim gets the hair, bugs, leaves and whatnot.

I'm very happy with this device and recommend it highly.

Anna
Click to expand...
 
Sounds like the 'flow' of the returns isn't adjusted properly for your pool :( Most returns have inlets that can be aimed to provide more optional circulation :cool:

If you tell us a little more about the pool, returns and skimmer location, we'll help you maximize the efficiency of your setup :)
 
frustratedpoolmom said:
It is normal to have a lot of debris, but there are some tricks that you can employ to help keep it at a minimum, like the flow via the directions of the returns, using a pool skim, skimmer socks, etc...
Click to expand...

:thequeen: :-D DIRECTING RETURNS

Oh yes. :!: It took me quite a while just watching the pool, when we first moved here, to get the direction of the returns adjusted to move everything down to the skimmer. That IS extremely important. I was "anal" about that too. And it obviously pays off.

It has been so long since I've threatened to break kneecaps on anyone who messes with my returns that I forgot. :hammer:

I had to redo all of them when we had the replaster done but it was much quicker to do then.

I've ordered a vacuum cleaner, tracker 4x. One of the things they advise for assisting it, in trouble shooting, is to turn returns downward. All of mine are up now to get maximum top circulation to the skimmer so I might have to do some adjusting for a happy medium for cleaner and returns. That probably will apply to kgolby's situation too.
 
Pool cleaner is Pentair Great White. It's in the pool pretty much 100% of the time unless we have lots of people in the pool. Works good for the most part. Though it does seem to get stuck around the drains and a couple of other spots in the pool fairly often. I don't have an issue w/ sand on the bottom. My Labs are older (12 & 11 yrs. old) and they haven't gotten in the pool to swim. The dog hair is just from their shedding and falling into the water.

The question about the returns is a great observation. I've got 3 sheer decent waterfalls on the back wall and 1 of the returns is in the shallow end. I've noticed when I'm cleaning the water flows in a circular pattern. How the water flows from scupper nearest shallow end: Water flows out of waterfall, return on back wall pushes water out to middle but water flows to shallow end, keeps flowing around shallow end, flows around to the steps, right past the steps is a return which pushes the water out to middle of the pool. Does that make sense? The skimmer is in the deep end which means this water pretty much stays circulating in the shallow end b/c of the waterfalls & returns. Should I increase the suction of the skimmer? The skimmer setting right now is between L90 & R80 if that means anything.

If I need to post a pic of my pool can you let me know who to do it?

I appreciate the advice given so far.
 
kgolby said:
If I need to post a pic of my pool can you let me know who to do it?
Click to expand...
You can upload your photos to Photobucket.com.

Then copy the IMG code and paste it in your message here. Choose the "large" size when uploading.

It's easy, fast and free :-D

....and we just love pix of pools :mrgreen:

Also, I like the ping pong ball test.
 
Hope this works!!

Here are pictures of my pool. The 1st & 3rd pictures I just took for this post. On the 1st picture where the sun is reflecting off the water you can kind of see the debris that I'm complaining about. I did call the PB and they'll be coming out to check out the returns & skimmer. He agreed the jets probably need to be redirected. I will try the ping pong ball test before they come. Thanks for the great idea.

DSC_0003.jpg

IMG_0190.jpg

DSC_0002.jpg
 

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