For those with a fountain or waterfall....

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Depending how much aeration is achieved, running fountains for long periods will likely raise the pool ph quickly requiring frequent additions of MA to lower it and at some point additions of Baking soda to raise the TA that is reduced due to the Muriatic acid additions. Basically you are unintentionally doing this: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/lowering total alkalinity. My recommendation would be unless you are trying to lower TA, only run the fountains when you want the ambiance or at night to cool the water if it is too hot.
 
I usually run both, but...I typically do not run my pump for very long each day (about 30-40 minutes or so during and after adding chemicals). If I were to run it longer, I would turn off the spillover fountain by running the pool and spa separately for the reasons linen pointed out. The only exception to this guideline is during freezing weather when I run the pool and spa simultaneously which results in the waterfall occurring. But I usually let pH drift up during winter anyway.
 
Both our water features are default "off".
There is a bubbler in our swim shelf and we turn that on if kids are playing on the shelf, the kids seem to like it. It's also lit, so we will turn it on if we are sitting at the pool after dark, the way the light shines up through the bubbler is very nice.
We turn the waterfall on if we are sitting around the pool usually during the day (it's not lit yet). It makes a nice peaceful rumbling sound when running.
 

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I run two waterfalls daily. I have a SWCG and in combination with the waterfalls it does raise PH quite a bit. With that said, the only chemical maintenance I have is to add MA once a week to keep PH in balance. We love the sound of the waterfalls and if the PH maintenance is the only thing I need to worry about it is well worth the effort. Feel free to turn it off if you are so inclined. I live in the Deep South so we never close our pool. We are outside nearly every day and our pool is close to our home and is a major part of our outdoor living area so we appreciate keeping our pool open year round so we can enjoy it even when we cannot swim. If our pool was not so close to our home I would think differently.
 
i run mine to block out noise from nearby radios sometimes. my kids love playing in the water. I"m looking for some replacements which have different patterns...no photo handy, but mine are 3/4 inch males that screw into brass females embedded under the lip of the pool. What are these called and where do you buy them?

thanks,
 
My spa's waterfall runs daily for a 1/2 hour of the 6 hour pump cycle, I set up a timer to control the valve actuator in my Hayward equipment to do it. This prevents any algae from building up in the plumbing to it. Of course there is always manual control if we desire it at another time.
 
I have mine set to run 5 minutes everyday so the water isn't stagnant and causing an environment for mold/bacterial growth. When I first start them up in the Spring, I can smell a little gnarly smell coming out where there is some condensation occurring over the winter in them and heating up more as they're very close to the warm concrete surface. once the pool is going well, and shocked a bit, this goes away. I have heard where people do not run them for days or weeks at a time, they get funky with bio (funky not being a quantitative measurement of impurity).
cool.
Vector
 
We usually run both the dolphin mermaid statue and the sheer descent when we are entertaining. They are very loud and usually we are watching TV when we are in the pool and we have to crank up the 5-1 surround too loud:cheers:
 
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