Lopburi99

The pea gravel in the pots solved the problem of dirt coming from them. A simple, perfect solution! Also, I like the idea of diverting the water return from the filter down near the floor of the pool. That is the only return. The water from the ceramic is just pumped up and through for effect.

Since I have you on the line, is there a suction gizmo of some sort which I can use manually to keep the floor free of crap? Or is there a better way? We now have nice clear water, next is to try to keep the bottom as clean as we can. Diverting the return water near the bottom might also help swish the crap toward the filter inlet.

Thanks planemad.

Duplicate post

Hi, now it's my turn to revive this thread. We have a small tiled fish pool in the front of the, about 3' by 12' and 1.5-2' deep. We (I) got tired of it always looking murky and my wife hasn't had good luck keeping her fancy goldfish alive (the guppies and beta - no problems). Anyway, we completely cleaned the pool and bought a plastic tank type filter (about 3 gals) and motor. Water is pumped through plastic hair-rolled looking things and white fiber stuff then returns out the bottom of the tank. Chances are many of you have seen these because they are common here I think. We bought some colorful fancy goldfish, and introduced them into the pool after testing the water's Ph. All was well, the water sparking clean, happy fish swimming around. Oh, we also bought a second pump for aeration.

Then we wanted to add water lilies as we had before. We bought two clumps in a large black plastic pot and set them into the pool. All was fine until I checked the pool a couple of hours later only to see dirty water. Evidently the filtered water being pumped into the pool was churning up the mud at the bottom of each pot of lilies. Grr, never thought about that. Now what to do, anybody have ideas? We really want to have clear fresh looking water. I thought maybe putting stones or marbles in the pots on top of the mud (now much) but it still may get swished into the water. Wife thinks maybe we should scrap the lilies idea and buy some plastic plants and flowers instead but I am hoping we don't have to resort to that.

Hope somebody sees this post who has some ideas. Thanks\

Here is a before photo and then one I took just before the water turned dirty.

I am thinking the best solution short of spending money I don't have is what we did tonight. We opened the doors of the three rooms off the  problem area and turned on the a/cs in each room. Then we placed a fan at the door, blowing the cooled air into the problem area. Not too bad! That will at least knock the heat down to bearable in those rooms.

Interesting thought Canopus. It is possible a rebate could be issued direct from Ford corporate in Michigan. Still not likely but it would be worth a call to World Headquarters to inquire. (We ended up taking delivery of a new Corolla Altis, so I'll personally not be following up this further.)