Solar Fish??

[rmeden]

Well, I've had two nights with the fish!

It'd say it works as advertised. Temperature barely dropped overnight, even with a 10 degree air/water difference.

Unfortunately, it was in the upper 60's low 70's all day today so the pool didn't heat up either... but still holding at 71 degrees. What do other folks in Dallas have?

Not a scientific test, but I'm pretty sure I had temp drop overnight before the fist.

I estimate 800 sqft of surface area. I was only able to buy the "turbo" fish ($20@Leslie's). They have two modes, 400 sqft and "other". I dropped in two fish.. one in the "other" mode, the other 400sqft. I wanted to make sure I had enough in the water to get a result

I'm running the pump during the day 6 hours or so. Sucking from skimmers and returning through floor jets. Water is pretty smooth.. barely a ripple in the wind.

I'll report results from time to time. I used the spa tonight, so tomorrow's measurements will be meaningless (I dumped heated spa water into the pool when I was done)

Robert

[salinda]

I use the Turbo Solar fish and it works for us. I believe a bubble cover would work better, but we have a large odd-shaped pool and not much deck space inside the safety fence to store the rolled cover, even in pieces. My kids are another reason to avoid the bubble cover--a friend's toddler almost died when the pool gate was left ajar at a party and he went into the pool, slipped under the cover and wound up at the bottom before being found just in time.

We have a large temperature drop in the air in N. California (30-40 degrees sometimes). The fish keeps temperature loss in the pool to 5-7 degrees, sometimes less depending on cloud cover.

Sometimes the fish don't work and I can tell right away by the pool temps. The company that distribute the fish (sunsolar) is really good and will send replacements for bad fish if you send the proof of purchase, so keep the receipts. They don't have this on the instructions, but if you have the turbo they told me to hold the turbo at the base when you first put it in the water (not held upside down, just put your hand onto the bottom of the fish). Within 4-8 seconds, you should feel the vibration of the pump activating. If not, remove it from the water, give a small whack against the pool deck and try again.

[LostboyinVA]

I bought 2 of the normal fish to cover my 750sqft pool. They went in last night. Pool has been open 2 days. (it is crystal clear and balanced as of last night) Last night I had a 4 degree overnight drop. Previous night was 6 degress. Not scientific, but that makes it better if it lasts. I'm going to watch it for the next could of weeks and see if makes a difference. The kids won't care if I can just get the temp over 70. It was 66 yesterday afternoon. It was 62 this morning. I'm getting about 9-10 degree rise a day for now. If I can keep the weather gods from causing a serious temp drop during the days here in VA I should be over 70 this weekend. Needs to be closer to 80 before I'm getting in, but I'll let the boy and his friends in this weekend if it goes over 70.

I don't want to mess with a cover and figure I will only need to mess with the fish in May and September. Once completed in August the pool was plenty warm enough to not even need a cover (consistently 85+). I expect June and July to be the same. $40 a year to extend the season a week or two is worth it to me if it works. If it doesn't work next year and in the fall I save the money.