I have tried all remedies for pesky air leak (slow) in 18x48 ES pool. All good 1st and 2nd year usually. About the third year pinholes, birdholes whatever rear their ugly head. This year I had a hard to find puncture that caused some water loss due to inattention on my part. In the past, the old soap bubble method would suffice to find leak. This time I had a puncture about a 1/16" that lost air too fast to allow soap bubble to form. Too hard of hearing to find by ear. Some one suggested using a ring of joined wacky-noodles just below ring to keep soft upper air ring from flopping down and losing water. Did that, but didn't solve real problem, tho. I had a moment of clarity while thinking of a way of maintaining pressure in ring. The thing is , the pressure is so low (<2-3 psi) that monitoring it is difficult by regular automatic switch. So thinking of pumps, I checked specs on aquarium pumps and found one for about 25 bucks from Petco. It puts out 3.2 psi max and comes with its own check valve and tubing. Power is 4 watts so not an issue there. I hooked it up to large pool inflator valve recess using a small (1/2?) brass barbed adapter inserted into inlet and used small hose clamp to assure airtightness. Barb size easily fits into flexible clear aquarium hose no clamp needed. (Not sure of male thread od maybe 1/2 " I had kicking around-any hdwe store has them.) BTW, the model pump is an Imagatarium 60-100 gal size from Petco with adjustable air flow knob. You don't have to worry about overinflation -max output is 3.19 psi so theres that. Quiet piece of mind for maintaining static pressure. Obviously, if crow shows up with a switchblade, all bets are off.
Dennis the Ringmaster!
Dennis the Ringmaster!
Thanks for sharing. welcome to TFP! 