Need help easing my fears

[jessab]

Hi all, I’ve had my pool for about 6 weeks and though I’m still working on getting some levels in check (mainly TA) I’ve had a very enjoyable and trouble-free experience thus far. (Thanks to you and this site for so much awesome info!)

However, I have this fear that one day I’m going to wake up to a bug-infested algae pond because of my stairs. I can easily scrub the outside of them, but they are hollow and I have 3 plasticy-mesh bags filled with bags full of sand inside of them, and I cannot (without removing them) clean in there. Is this a legitimate fear? Or if my chlorine levels always stay good and there are no signs of algae elsewhere in the pool, is it safe to say the environment would not be hospitable to it inside the stairs either?

Sorry the picture isn’t super clear of the staircase. It’s windy here today so the water is moving quite a bit.

 

[PoolStored]

Definitely get some extra holes in the stairs - @Mdragger88 havs drilled a bazillion holes in hers in specific places & after much trial & error she thinks she finally have enough to make cleaning/flow easier. She used a hole saw, and has the same wedding cake stairs. She has it now where she can shove a a bottle brush in the holes & scrub. She'll likely weigh in...

 

[kimkats]

What I did was drill more holes AND use a turkey baster to squirt some chlorine into the holes to make sure some got inside that area.

 

[jessab]

Definitely get some extra holes in the stairs - @Mdragger88 havs drilled a bazillion holes in hers in specific places & after much trial & error she thinks she finally have enough to make cleaning/flow easier. She used a hole saw, and has the same wedding cake stairs. She has it now where she can shove a a bottle brush in the holes & scrub. She'll likely weigh in...

Great ideas! Thank you!

 

[jessab]

What I did was drill more holes AND use a turkey baster to squirt some chlorine into the holes to make sure some got inside that area.

Also great ideas! Thank you!

 

[Mdragger88]

The trouble I can see happening is with your weights. If water can get in the sand algae will grow.
We suggest using sealed weights.
That can be as simple as using old bleach bottles filled with sand and capped with duct tape before putting the cap on.
They sell larger plastic jugs with wide necks for this purpose but I personally prefer multiple smaller weights as they are easier to deal with.
After my bleach jugs passed away I moved on to plastic dumbbell type weights- mainly because I already had them.

 

[jessab]

The trouble I can see happening is with your weights. If water can get in the sand algae will grow.
We suggest using sealed weights.
That can be as simple as using old bleach bottles filled with sand and capped with duct tape before putting the cap on.
They sell larger plastic jugs with wide necks for this purpose but I personally prefer multiple smaller weights as they are easier to deal with.
After my bleach jugs passed away I moved on to plastic dumbbell type weights- mainly because I already had them.

Thank you for the great suggestion. I will be doing that next year for sure. I’ll likely pull the stairs out for the season within a few weeks & will toss those bags in the trash. I have a feeling algae might be growing in the stairs because I’ve been finding water bugs having around them. Not many, but at least 1 or 2 daily. I take them out & kill them. I just found a huge one I hadn’t seen yet a few minutes ago!