Need Help Identifying Unknown Parts that blew out of Pool Return Pipe

[aaronrryan]

I had a leak in my pool that was pretty significant, about 1" a day.
I hired a leak detection guy and we found a leak in the pool return line.
When we were first doing the test, it held some pressure and lost about 5 psi every 10 seconds.
But it got worse, and now it wont hold any pressure, air or water.
We drained the pool and have done a bunch of tests.
During one of the tests we had some parts get blown out of the 2" return line.

I attached 2 photos of it.
Can anyone identify it?

 

[ajw22]

@JamesW @RDspaguy @jimmythegreek @Jimrahbe ideas?

 

[Shirker]

Almost looks like an eyeball return

 

[RDspaguy]

Are those ball bearings in that ring? How big is it?

 

[Dirk]

You should post a pic or two of your pad so we can see what components you have.

Can you retake that photo with something next to it that will give it scale (ruler, quarter, etc).

Does anything on your pad not work, that you know of?

 

[aaronrryan]

Here is a pic with a ruler for scale.
And yes those are ball bearings.
Everything works on my pool pad.
I'm guessing this is from previously broken equipment or valve that has since been replaced.
There used to be a RayPak heater on the pad, that was recently replaced with the MasterTemp.
There is no way that a piece this size got through the heater, it must be from after the heater.

If this is from something buried underground, we will soon be digging up the leak and investigating further.





In this pic, the pool leak guy is listening around the area where the leak is expected. That return hole near him is where this part came out on the pool return.

 

[Dirk]

Thanks for the additional info. I have no clue, but our experts will have a little more to go on. It's smaller than I thought. I'm going to guess part of a valve handle or some sort of diverter or actuator. It's a moving part, obviously. That pretty much means motor or valve.

I like your theory about the heater. I'm gonna say part of the old heater's internal bypass valve... I can't imagine anyone burying something with a moving part underground.

Nice looking pool and yard. I like the raised "observation deck!"

 

[aaronrryan]

We think we have figure it out.
The pool used to have some sort of in-floor pool cleaning system with pop up heads,
like this: Caretaker 5-Port Complete 1.5" Water Valve Assembly
The pop up head are something like this: A&A Gamma 2 Venturi Pop Up Head (White)

Here's how these things work:

After chipping the pool we found 21 of these pipes throughout the pool that were just covered by plaster.

 

[aaronrryan]

I wanted to show you guys all the places we found them...kinda crazy!