Sorry, lifes been busy. Well, went and bought a bunch of borax and was planning for the weekend and the bugs disappeared. It was so wierd. So I am keeping an eye out but I think I scared them off 
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BUGS INVASION!!!!
- Thread starter Andiejj
- Start date
That bug looks like a giant water bug.. commonly known as toe biters for obvious reasons.. THEY BITE!! And its painful!!! But not poisonous..
http://whatsthatbug.com/toe_biter.html
http://whatsthatbug.com/toe_biter.html
Yep, sure looks like them. I hate knowing they bite but then again it makes me feel better about squashing them . Thanks for the link. My pool guy was out a week or so ago and I was telling him about all the bugs and he told me has seen them grow HUGE. Hopefully that will not happen in my pool. Thanks again!
. Thanks for the link. My pool guy was out a week or so ago and I was telling him about all the bugs and he told me has seen them grow HUGE. Hopefully that will not happen in my pool. Thanks again!ktdave said:Andrea,
If you want to try and add borates, I would shoot for 40 ppm. In that case, you will need 10 boxes of 20 mule team borax (green box sold at Target, Wal-mart, most supermarkets in the laundry section). You will also need about three gallons of muriatic acid.
Put your intelliflow on speed 4 (high speed). Add 1 gal. MA. Then maybe 15 min later add half of the borax (5 boxes slowly into skimmer). I would do a round of brushing between each chemical.
Wait about 2 hours and check your pH and adjust accordingly. You'll proably need to add some MA.
Then I would wait a day or two and repeat, adding the last five boxes of borax and finally get your pH in check.
I just did this myself and I ordered some borate test strips from http://www.lambertshomeservices.com/ for $10 for 25 tests.
Hope this helps and good luck! Ask questions as needed!
Sorry to bump an old thread but I had only one real question....and it's a very valid topic for me with the answers in it but I'm wondering how long to wait before swimming or how fast should I see the little ******'s die?
THANKS! Sean, the search is great, I've gotten tons of answers without having to post!
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how long before the bugs die?
When I tried this last summer, I never did really find that they died - they just left. I did find that a few boatmen still stuck around, but the toebiters vanished and never came back.
When I tried this last summer, I never did really find that they died - they just left. I did find that a few boatmen still stuck around, but the toebiters vanished and never came back.