Thanks for the ideas. Fortunately, here in central Georgia we are still playing peek-a-boo with 80 degrees, so I think my liner is still pretty pliable. I will let it get to the bottom of the stairs and no further.
I pulled my winter cover on a couple of weeks ago, so leaves are collecting on it instead of the bottom of the pool. (I fought that monster last spring.) Water is still crystal clear, I just have to pull the cover back to examine.
I taped a plastic ruler to the wall this morning, and I lost just under an inch in ten hours. So I figure still about 2 inches per day.
As for the dye, I talked to two different pool stores and they both said red food coloring. I stopped by a local scuba shop, and they didn't know what marker dye I was asking about (they recommended I go to the pool store ). Where do you get stream tracing tablets?