Air bubbles coming from return (from crack in pump pot)

[waste]

Anna, how are you- other than the air? I 'bookmarked' this post last night, in case that Chris' excellent advice didn't work. You can take a bucket of water, or better yet - a garden hose turned on just enough to 'dribble out' and slowly pour the water on any suspect plug, fitting, the pump lid... and see if the air bubbles lessen - this will pinpoint the air leak.

Another possibility is that you have an obstruction in either the vac hose or the skimmer hose, in which case the water is cavitating thereby producing the bubbls.

I wish you and your husband well with the 'detective work' this weekend, if you need any more help - you know where to find us

[AnnaK]

Just wanted to give a quick update.

There is probably a leak in the pot housing. It's dry around the plug but water collects on the lip at the very bottom of the pot. We turned off the pump, closed all the valves, drained and dried the pot and inspected it as best we coul. No cracks that we could feel or see.

After everything was put pack together and the pot filled and closed, dang it if water didn't appear on the lip again! So there is a leak but I just cannot imagine it would shoot as many air bubbles as what I get when there's suction. It makes a visible, opaque stream of tiny little bubbles.

So . . . waiting for the weekend to work on this some more.