We just purchased a house with a 15 x 30 above ground pool. Opened the pool and aside from some chmical balancing issues and realizing that a Nature 2 system isn't the exciting bonus item we thoguht it was, all was fine. We've only been in it a few days with being so busy painting inside the house and the stormy weather. On Monday, my husband came home from a business trip at 2 am and noticed we were losing water from the pool. After a 2 am dip with a flashlight, we found a 1 inch tear in the bottom of the liner. Since we only swim with noodles and goggles and soft pool toys, I have no idea how the tear got there. My only guess is that all of the little divots and indentations in the bottom of liner caused a stress tear. I have never owned a pool and thought they were just normal variations, my husband has experience with pools but has had his hand in a cast and hasn't been in the pool so didn't know they were there. Without a patch kit on hand, my husband temporarily patched the hole with some heavy duty plastic wrap and rocks on top. It slowed the leak until the morning. However, when he removed the plastic wrap to put the patch kit on, so much water gushed out, it caused a lot of sand to wash out from under the pool walls and the hole grew to a 2x2 inch hole! We patched the hole, but it is still slowly leaking and there is a big divot or pothole under the hole. We were intending to replace the liner next spring anyway, and would really like to try to find a way to patch it until next spring. We rented a sump pump to drain all of the water out, replace the sand, and patch the hole. But I luckily ended up reading online you shouldn't completely drain an above ground pool. Is there any way to funnel some sand into the hole and patch it? Will the liner that has been out of the water since Monday shrink? Thanks for any info.