How far to let leak drain?

[AndyT86]

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?

[Poconos]

Trying to spot the tear can be a dog depending on the liner pattern. As many times as I looked right at mine I didn't see it until I knew exactly where to look from the dye test. And this was with perfectly clear water. I scarfed my dye tablets from a GE chem lab years ago. I found ocean dye markers on-line and assumed a dive shop should have something but obviously not. I guess you would have to take them apart to get to the dye. Don't know how they are constructed. Food coloring is expensive. Something I've suggested over the years is raw beets. Chop them up and boil them and you have a concentrated red dye. Pretty cheap and you can make as much as you want...then eat the beets.
Al

[AndyT86]

I found my leak! On the floor in the shallow end, near the steps. I made a version of Al's dye dispenser, and the beet juice worked pretty good. Only problem with the beet juice is that my family did not like the smell of them cooking, and would not eat them. I wonder how the juice from red cabbage would work? Maybe I'll try that next time.

Spent six hours Saturday slowly checking every seam. After two more hoirs today, I was working with trying to improve on Al's dispenser when I noticed a black "speck" that did not move. Turned out to be my leak. Verified it with the
dispenser.

This brings up another question, but I'll make a new thread for it.