My steps have plastic sections that are filled with stones that just lift out when you are ready to remove the steps. On the bottom and underneath and sides of my steps there are some holes already there, maybe 2 inch diameters or so. So, that means that water is flowing through my ladder all the time. I think as long as the holes you make are fairly large, there will be some water movement and thus no dirty water issues.

Somebody on here -- maybe AnnaK, but not sure --- filled pieces of PVC with stones and capped them and then she just puts the PVC pieces inside he steps to weight it down. I'll see if I can find one of her posts for you. She has a link in her signature showing what she did ---- I *think*!

EDIT --- Yep, it was AnnaK. Check post #6 in the following thread and you can click on the link in her signature to see how she handled this problem.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ells-Like-Poop

Hope this helps!