water bugs? Look here.

[Leah]

We have these bugs too. Is it safe for kids if they accidently drink the water. I have a 3 & 4 year old who constantly swallow the water on accident, is this killer of bugs... safe for children?

[ccandrews]

Ok so nobady had the back up algeacide but I had algeacide with copper in it and woke upi this morning to thet water bugs floating on top dead.My kid got bit and would not go in the pool til I took care of it so you don't need the biogurad one just an algeacide that has copper in it.Thanks for all the info thought i was never gonna get rid of them due to us haveing a creak run behind the house

[jo]

KILL BUGS NOW
CLOROX BLEACH we use bleach to clean the pool almost every day about half a bottle when we got those
bugs we tried it and dam its fast put about 1 bottle to start then youll know if you need to add a little
more we use bleach and the kids go rite in and swim and it clears your water real fast we have a big pool
never use anything else and it stays clean we sweep it a little that it cheep an ez

[Donna]

We had the pool bug know as Boatman. They are terribly hard to get rid of. We thought we were successful the 1st time but noticed them back again a few days later. We live across the street from a marsh so I think we were getting reinfected each night. We kept our clorine levels very high. Used algaescide 600 plus scrubbed the heck out of the pool. They have been gone now for several days and I hope they do not return. We were scooping them out and killing them but then switched to using the vacuum and sucking them up. That works much better. At least the boatman are the type that do not bite, I would hate to get the ones that do. Pool store was no help what so ever. I was telling them what to do in the end and we have only had our pool a couple of months. It took about 8 days in all to get rid of them.

[swimnsaveusa]

We had the pool bug know as Boatman. They are terribly hard to get rid of. We thought we were successful the 1st time but noticed them back again a few days later. We live across the street from a marsh so I think we were getting reinfected each night. We kept our clorine levels very high. Used algaescide 600 plus scrubbed the heck out of the pool. They have been gone now for several days and I hope they do not return. We were scooping them out and killing them but then switched to using the vacuum and sucking them up. That works much better. At least the boatman are the type that do not bite, I would hate to get the ones that do. Pool store was no help what so ever. I was telling them what to do in the end and we have only had our pool a couple of months. It took about 8 days in all to get rid of them.

In order to permanently get rid of these pests, you really need to be sure NO algae whatsoever is present in the pool, at all! This is done by keeping your pH, Alkalinity, Free Chlorine & CYA levels in perfect balance, as well as constant brushing and vacuuming of the walls, floor, steps, & any other surfaces that are in the water. Weekly shocking may be required for some time to be sure absolutely no algae is present in the pool. Once the pool is perfectly clean, you need to backwash your filters regularly including taking it apart and manually cleaning it at least once every 6 months (more for cartridge). While algaecide isn't necessary, it will definitely help in keeping the algae positively GONE from the pool. Be sure to use a polyquat type algaecide as the linearquat algaecides tend to foam if accidentally overdosed. Hope this information will help since your local pool store failed to do so.