Testing circulation - ping pong balls no good

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sbcpool

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Mar 10, 2015
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Upland, CA
Tried the ping pong balls. They float with 80+% of their volume out of the water. The slightest breeze scoots them along the surface in the direction of the breeze, even counter to the water current. I was thinking that the little styrofoam 'beads' from inside a bean bag would work far better. Anyone already invented this wheel?
 
ajw22 said:
The prevailing winds have more of an affect on surface skimmer direction then the returns have.
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That' right. So even if the ping pongs are not telling you what you need to know about the water circulation, they're still giving you good data about how to adjust circulation for best skimming effect. Or find a period of the day (or night) that has zero wind, if that's possible in your area.

If you can't get the dye to work, I'm wondering if a water balloon would. This idea is inspired by the watermelon pool game you might have heard of. A water balloon would be near neutrally buoyant. To keep it from sinking you'd leave a tiny bit of air in it to keep it at the surface, but not enough to put more than the tie above the waterline. That might track your circulation. I've never tried this myself, but now I want to! Or maybe a plastic milk jug or coke bottle filled with water? Old chlorine jug? Just spitballin' ideas with ya...
 
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There are evaporation control spheres you can purchase that are designed out of a high weight polyethylene or Teflon and are designed to float on top of chemical baths with to reduce evaporation. But that’s a fairly expensive investment for a one time experiment.

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I was thinking of using my wife's insulin syringes to inject the ping pong balls with water until they're just barely buoyant, but it seems like that would give them too much inertia to move freely with tiny currents. I may just try to do it overnight when there's usually zero breeze. It was kind of funny seeing the ping pong ball zooming away from the skimmer while visible bits of debris were headed the other way.
 
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sbcpool said:
I was thinking of using my wife's insulin syringes to inject the ping pong balls with water until they're just barely buoyant, but it seems like that would give them too much inertia to move freely with tiny currents.
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You're thinking of them full of water in terms of how they would feel in your hand. In the water, the inertia, if any, would only be from the mass of the plastic ball (not much at all). Once in the pool, the water inside the ball would have the same weight and mass as the water that it displaces, so should move as the surrounding water does (which also has weight and mass). Same for the water balloon, or plastic jugs I suggested. You could use a small plastic coke bottle. The lighter the container relative to the weight of the water inside, the less the inertia of the container would come into play. You could use a Ziploc sandwich bag with a tiny bit of air inside.
 
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