Dead Mouse

[Wolffe]

I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but all of the old posts are gone. I even hoped Google had cached some of the old posts, but I couldn't find what I was looking for.

I found a dead mouse in the skimmer this morning and now I'm just looking for some peace of mind. Ever since we built the pool, I've always had the thought of that dreaded day where I lift the skimmer's lid to find something floating inside... and today was the day. I found two tiny frogs last year (a few days apart) but that didn't really bother me much (although I have no idea where it came from since this is a heavily residential area) but the mouse got to me a bit. I've read about some of the things some of you have found and this just can't compare... but anyway...

The mouse completely shot my plans of enjoying this beautiful hot day in the pool after a week of rain and grey skies. The chlorine level was very low afer all the rain, so I decided I'd rather be safe than sorry and I dumped enough bleach in the pool to bump up the chlorine level to roughly 16ppm. Is that sufficient to sanitize the pool again? I'm not sure what my stabilizer level is at (ran out of those test agents), but it's fairly low. I added stabilizer granules at the start of the season and I use bleach exclusively.

Also, when can we jump back in again?

So, instead of swimming we saw Superman Returns instead -- I thought it was ok, but the plot was rather dull in my opinion.

[aylad]

If your CYA is less than 60, and the pool has been shocked to 16, you're fine to go swimming. You can jump back in once the Cl level is below 10, but I'd wear old suits until it's 5 or less (assuming a low CYA level)

Janet

[Wolffe]

Thanks for the tips.

I checked the levels this morning and my CL looked to be around 2 already! I checked the total CL and it looked to be the same. The water looks crystal clear and it smells fine.

Is it normal for that much CL to be used that quickly? I rarely bring it up to those levels. I shocked it last night around 5:00pm and we get sunlight here till around 9:00pm or so. I have my pump running 11:00am to 11:00pm.

Perhaps my stabilizer level is far lower than I thought. I'm going to have to buy some CYA test chemicals this week.

[aylad]

If your stabilizer is low, and you have full sun on your pool for a large amount of the day, then 14 ppm drop in Cl doesn't surprise me. However, if your CYA is higher than you think, and you're still losing that much, then I would shock it again and maintain that shock level for a couple of days before letting it come back down. Has nothing to do with the mouse--that's over and done with--but you don't want an algae invitation!

Janet

[rollinrock]

Wait til you hear a thumping in the skimmer, open it up and find a snake in there. Dont ask me what kind it was because I took off running.

[joliecharlie]

The very reason we don't stick our finger in the skimmer cover hole anymore. We have a rope attaced to it.. using rope, pop the cover off quickly, then slowly lean in a take a look. Just found a very water logged and dead baby snake yesterday in the skimmer sock. I decided it was time to throw that sock away and get a fresh one! Usually only have one or two a season.