thanks watermom - I have an unrelated question right now - at the end of last season we had a bad bloom of pink algae - we were using baquacil at the time and it was very hard to treat. I tried to bleach my ladder as best I could. I just pulled it out of storage to put it in the pool this morning and in my inspection I noticed that there looks like there might be a lot of dried pink algae stuck inside the bottom step. impossible to clean - and I'm sure the other step have some inside too. The ladder has hollow metal candy cane shaped sides with plastic steps screwed in for the above ground pool - the whole thing then screws into the metal deck attached to the long side of the pool.

I decided not to put it in the pool this morning becasue I was worried that the algae would "reactivate" in some way. I had looked into getting a new ladder last year but found it wouldnt be that easy. Do I need to look harder? or am I ok to put it in? I just picked up some polyquat that Ben had recommended for the pool and was planning on putting some in this morning ( although I admit I'm not sure of the dose - he didnt tell me that) Would that help? Thanks. aciam