Water Scorpions

[Cherie]

We seem to be having a problem with water scorpions now. We've found 3 in our skimmer basket, drowned. I kept one to take a picture and make sure it wasn't a praying mantis that changed to black! But it seems to have disappeared (probably tossed by DH!). Anyway, I'm getting a little nervous about reaching into my skimmer these days to clean our basket. My boatman spotter (8 yr old son) found about 8 boatmen today and we sucked them into the skimmer using the manual cleaner - I was already cleaning the pool anyway. I figured the skimmer would hold them down long enough to drown them - but then I read that the little boogers can live for SEVEN HOURS under water. Sure enough! When I finally turned the pump off to clean the skimmer basket, I found NONE! They're right back in the pool. But at least there wasn't a water scorpion in there this time! :-D

Anyone else having a problem like this?

 

[torchroadster]

Are water scorpions different than other scorpions? We have found numerous scorpions in our pool - but always dead. We also have lots and lots of frogs, and average 1 mouse per day. Not sure how to keep any of them out - but would love to hear what others have tried.

 

[Cherie]

Water scorpions look like praying mantis, only they're a blackish color.

We also have now captured and tortured a backswimmer as of today too! I'd read that if you put an oil layer on top of the water, they cant' get to the air (hey, makes sense to me. But since I'm a homeschooler, thought it would be a good lesson for the kids. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it!) So I covered just a small area and sure enough, the 1st time it hit the area, it went bonkers and you could see the air coming out of its pockets. It found a safe place and tucked some more air. So I added more oil and it ended up struggling to get away from it and got all oiled up. Didn't take long to die and it flipped back upright when struggling to free itself. So it died upright. Good riddance. Now for getting all those lesser boatmen out of our pool!! They're much smaller and harder to catch!

 

[Hotrod30]

Water scorpions look like praying mantis, only they're a blackish color.

We also have now captured and tortured a backswimmer as of today too! I'd read that if you put an oil layer on top of the water, they cant' get to the air (hey, makes sense to me. But since I'm a homeschooler, thought it would be a good lesson for the kids. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it!) So I covered just a small area and sure enough, the 1st time it hit the area, it went bonkers and you could see the air coming out of its pockets. It found a safe place and tucked some more air. So I added more oil and it ended up struggling to get away from it and got all oiled up. Didn't take long to die and it flipped back upright when struggling to free itself. So it died upright. Good riddance. Now for getting all those lesser boatmen out of our pool!! They're much smaller and harder to catch!

I don't understand. You are putting oil in your swimming pool?

 

[Cherie]

HA! Not yet, but I'm tempted!! No, that is not a feasible way of killing the little boogers off, but certainly IS an effective way (especially when waterboarding doesn't work)! Now if Chem Geek, or one of those other really smart geeky guys could come up with some type of light oil that could be introduced into the pool long enough to kill them off, then clean it out with a bleach shock....just an idea

I don't know why we've had boatmen ALL SUMMER. Mostly it's been the Lesser Boatmen (don't bite you, just live off algae). But today, it was a Boatman backswimmer (the kind that will bite the heck out of you). And now I find out that the long ugly bugs are water scorpions, which also HURT like heck!!

We'll beat this thing...before the summer is out!

 

[searayboater]

Wow! Someone get Cherie's Lexapro

 

[Cherie]

Sorry...I just used the last of it!! :lol:

 

[Cherie]

Actually Hotrod, we put it in a bowl to watch it swim around for awhile and I wanted to get a good picture of it. So we tortured it outside of our pool! Lucky junebugs..they had already drowned in the skimmer! School hasn't even started yet and our daughter already has an assignment to start collecting bugs. Wasn't this a good year to put in a pool?

Water scorpions look like praying mantis, only they're a blackish color.

We also have now captured and tortured a backswimmer as of today too! I'd read that if you put an oil layer on top of the water, they cant' get to the air (hey, makes sense to me. But since I'm a homeschooler, thought it would be a good lesson for the kids. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it!) So I covered just a small area and sure enough, the 1st time it hit the area, it went bonkers and you could see the air coming out of its pockets. It found a safe place and tucked some more air. So I added more oil and it ended up struggling to get away from it and got all oiled up. Didn't take long to die and it flipped back upright when struggling to free itself. So it died upright. Good riddance. Now for getting all those lesser boatmen out of our pool!! They're much smaller and harder to catch!

I don't understand. You are putting oil in your swimming pool?

 

[Casey]

I got one word and a link for ya....

BORATES!
so-you-want-to-add-borates-to-your-pool-why-and-how-t4921.html

 

[Cherie]

Yep, you're right Casey! I read that one about a month ago and I'm bitin' at the bits to get it done. But I was waiting on The Circulator first to help us in our circulation, which is not exactly great with only one return. The Circulator turned out to be awful. So now I'm waiting for my husband to put in a second return...and that won't happen until after the rain stops and things dry out now. We still have tons of dirt (er, mud now) around our pool and more rain forecasted for today. While the rain is a much-welcomed relief, I expect it's not doing our pool any good! And now I'm having a tough time getting up to it to collect my test water and sweep it down after adding my bleach! And I'm not even going to try the MA shock (assuming that what we have is actually MA - another story on another thread) until I can get better circulation and access to the pool for sweeping it down. A little bit of a quandry now - but not bad.

I look so forward to when we have everything completed on it - life will be sweet then!! Too bad Crown Pools didn't take care of making sure we had adequate circulation before getting out of the picture!

I got one word and a link for ya....

BORATES!
so-you-want-to-add-borates-to-your-pool-why-and-how-t4921.html

 

[Hotrod30]

My pool has had borates in it for over a month and the grandkids still chase backswimmers around. They don't seem to bit or bother anyone. (the backswimmers I mean) I'm happy to have them right now. My granddaughter is scared of anything flying (everything is a bee) and getting in a pool with the backswimmers was tough at first; but now it doesn't bother her. She even tries to catch them.

With that said, adding borates was a good move. I'm glad I did it. The water looks and feels better; but I don't think it bothers the swimming bugs.

 

[Cherie]

My pool has had borates in it for over a month and the grandkids still chase backswimmers around. They don't seem to bit or bother anyone. (the backswimmers I mean) I'm happy to have them right now. THE GRANDKIDS, OR THE BACKSWIMMERS? My granddaughter is scared of anything flying (everything is a bee) and getting in a pool with the backswimmers was tough at first; but now it doesn't bother her. She even tries to catch them.

With that said, adding borates was a good move. I'm glad I did it. The water looks and feels better; but I don't think it bothers the swimming bugs.

Hotrod, I think what you have are Lesser Water Boatmen. The backswimmers, which are Water Boatmen, are the ones that bite...and swim on their backs - although it's nearly impossible to tell that they're swimming on their backs until you get up real close and have a chance to really look at it. The Lesser Water Boatmen are smaller, but similar to backswimmers. They do not bite because they are herbivores (sp) and live off algae, while the backswimmers willl kill/eat the Lesser Water Boatmen. We've only had two of backswimmers and our son found out the hard way to stay away from them! But we have quite a few of the Lessers and we've grown used to swimming with them. We leave them alone and they leave us alone!

But we may not have to worry about them anyway, since it's really chilled down in Texas. At this rate, our swim season may be over! Who'd a guessed it? And here I was hoping for an Indian Summer, now that we have a pool!