Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it! I took your advice and bought the Polaris 65. I had read the reviews on it previously and it was one of the cleaners that I thought sounded good but since I'm a fairly new pool owner I wanted to check here. My pool is very close to the woods so we do get a lot of tree matter in the pool at times and especially closer to the end of the season. I'll try the cotton balls for the sand and see how my luck goes with that. How many cotton balls do you put in the bag?