Losing Water!

[South_Texas_Sun]

Scooter, I just found a leak in my spa by using something I read here (somewhere).....Get a bottle of liquid RIT dye and put it into some kind of sqeeze or spray bottle.

Squirt a little of it at the skimmer with the filter system ON, just to see what the dye looks like when "pulled" towards a "leak", then turn OFF the filter system and squirt the suspect areas.

It works great. I found a couple of good sized leaks and a couple of really tiny leaks around the spa rail jet tubes.

Hth,

STS

[matt4x4]

Sounds like your skimmer seals to me, along the bottom edge, but what baffles me is that you do not have any moisture around the pool - weird!

[scooter hotrod]

It has to be leaking from the skimmer or from the the water return to the pool. It might be there, that was the only place that was a little moist, but I coudn't find a leak. Could it be leaking between the return and the pool wall and draining straight down where I can't detect it? I'll have an answer on this tomorrow. Thanks for all of the advice.

[matt4x4]

It can easily be leaking between the liner and wall, running down in between and out the bottom, you should have a relatively large soft area directly beneath - outside of pool perimeter as well. At least that's an easy fix since it likely just requires tightening or new gaskets.

[scooter hotrod]

Well I think I found the culprit! There were a couple of holes between the end of my backwash hose and the filter, so the water (leaking from the faulty push/pull valve) wasn't making it all the way to the end. It was gradually leaking out in the middle of the damn hose. For now I have the hose pulled up so it can't leak until I can replace the valve. Thanks for everyones' advice....hopefully this will do the trick. I've had enough problems with the pool this year.

Now if only I could get rid of my algae problem.....I have some black algae on the bottom of the pool, concentrated mainly at one end. Since it's been down almost a week it's starting to spread though. A guy at my local pool supply store said there's a strange strand this year. Is he full of crap just trying to get me to buy some overpriced stuff??????

[Spensar]

I recall reading a blurb on algae types, and for the black its said that it was tougher since it had roots and a tougher top. It said the key was to bomb it with chlorine, as for any algae, but that a good brushing was important to break it up and let the chlorine get at it since the roots would regrow from the roots even if it seemed to be gone.

Sounds like that is more of a problem for cement pools where roots could dig in vs. vinyl, but the advice on brushing it harder than a regular green algae could be the trick. If it's really tough you may want to try a smaller brush and do it by hand to break it up.

Good luck with it!