This summer Tristan took swimming lessons and needed to practice a little bit more. Devin and I discussed it and decided to purchase a larger pool for the family. I found a REALLY good deal at Fred Meyer and picked up a large family pool. (my brother has had the exact same pool for almost 3 years and loves it) Anyway-we looked around the yard and found a level-or so we thought-section to lay out the pool. This process took me 2 days. It is quite large and I couldn't do it by myself; had to wait for Devin to have a day off. Once it was set up I began the fill up process. Holy Moly!!!!! This took an entire day: over 12 hours. FOREVER!!!! All of the kids wanted to swim that day-but once it was full it was after 10:30pm. The following day we realized that the ground isn't very level and unfortunately the pool lays funny. The directions state that you should empty the pool, make the ground level, and fill again.....ummmmm NO!!! We enjoyed swimming in it for a few days, swam in it after Brynlee's blessing and just had a great time. I began to notice that the pool would lose water fast and it continued to happen almost every other day. I was so tired of feeling up the pool and dreaded the water bill. Early one morning Devin discovered that the lower side would lose water and fold in, therefore ALL the water would stream out. By the time we went out in the afternoon the ground would already be dry. THAT was why I had to keep filling it up. I put more air into the rim and had a few days of no water loss.
I decided that I should hook up the filter----note to self--this should be done prior to the pool being full. The water kept shooting out the hoses until I had Tristan hold them above his head. Finally had everything hooked up. Later that day I heard a weird noise and went outside--well-the hose fastener wasn't as tight as I thought and the hose came off-water was EVERYWHERE! Thankfully not in our basement. I was able to fix it and the kids enjoyed the pool once again.
They enjoyed it until a few weeks ago when Kyra and Cortlynn went out to swim. I went out to pull off the cover and get any leaves out of the pool. I noticed that there were floaters in the pool. They weren't floaters; they were something else. Some sort of bug, worm, parasite, something that shouldn't be in a swimming pool. I used the skimmer for well over an hour and was getting no where. This was disgusting!!!!! I called my brother, sent him a photo, and we couldn't really figure out what they could be. I googled parasites in pools, worms in pools, and happened to come across photos of mosquito larvae in pools: BINGO! That is what we have. GROSS! NASTY! Now what do I do? Devin and I both continued to skim the larvae out of the pool and couldn't get over how terribly disgusting it was. The next day I went to PETCO and purchased 35+ goldfish. Yes-goldfish. Thanks to GOOGLE, I discovered that the fish will eat the larvae. YEAH. I let the fish feed on the nastiness for a few days and decided to treat the pool. I couldn't see any fish and wondered where they could have gone but decided to treat it anyway. I get a bowl of water and pour in the Shock treatment: all of a sudden it started to foam and let off horrible fumes. I ran outside-dropping white foam all over the deck and yard-while trying not to breathe in the fumes because it was burning my throat. I poured it in, came in the house, and noticed the huge warning on the bag stating DONOT premix and inhaling fumes can be harmful. NICE---I'm an idiot once again.
I looked out an hour later and all the poor little fishies surfaced and were floating at the top. Now I had to skim dead fish out of the pool. Kyra was fascinated by the dead fish. She still goes outside to try to find them. Once the larvae and fish was gone--now came the algae. AWESOME!!!
I'm happy to say that today, over 2 weeks later, the kids can once again enjoy swimming in the pool. That is until I pack it up for the winter which will be happening in just a few weeks. I am hopeful that I've learned the tricks and all the "kinks" have been worked out so next year-we can enjoy it without all of the issues.
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| Notice how lopsided the pool is. |
The following 2 photos are of the larvae. I took them on the second day-I wish I had taken photos the first night with my camera--literally HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of them.
Not good photos-but these are a few of the fish
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| more fishies |
