Chlorinated to living (swimming) pool conversion

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Andyroo

Andyroo

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Apr 17, 2011
1,217
515
150
MoBay, Jamaica
www.seascapecarib.com
Hello,
My wife and I are looking to change house. Two of the places we've looked have a pool, maybe 12'x25'x8' or so in the deep end. With the cost & headaches of a chlorinated pool if we rented one of these places I'd look into a living-pool system. I don't see any reason why the water clarity will change (but that water will be clear or vaguely tannin-tinted rather than that antiseptic blue) with good planning and light (fish) stocking, but as it's a rental eventually we'll need to move out and give the pool back to the owner. I read on the live-pond forum that the living system will sometimes tint the diamond-brite and/or rendering or grout, meaning I'd need to re-coat the inside before giving the property back.
Any experience with this?
One of the pools we looked at is diamond-brite, the other is tiled. Re-grouting I can do, though a scotch-bright & bleach paste would probably do it.

And of course knowing me I know there'd be 2 RTC in there within 6 months, so the "light stocking" will be out the window :)
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I wouldn't recommend this for a rental situation. Moving is complicated enough, but when its time to move out, you now have to find homes for fish that might be ginormous in addition to cleaning the pool and such.

If you don't have a plan that will allow you to keep a pet for its entire life, maybe you shouldn't have that pet. In a rental situation..... not a good idea.
 
You think you're going to have a non chlorinated pool under the Jamaican sun without it turning green? You're going to need more UV than a tanning salon. You're talking about 15k ish gallons?
 
I've not done the math as there are shallow & deep ends in all the options & the measurements are eyeballed, but this approximation is probably not wrong.
Green water is certainly a consideration. Other ponds I've done with much higher stocking & shallower water have been kept crystal (but for hair-algae) with a good bead-filter & plants & a mature ecosystem rather than active feeding. As this one will be for swimming primarily and my fish #2 (wife's rules, not mine), stocking will be minimal and we probably won't feed... much. The rendered pool is in full sunshine but the tiled one has got tree-shade, though this means it's also full of leaves. My laziness in scooping leaves is part of my interest in not chlorinating- let the snails & scuds & plecos to the work ;). I'd do riparium setups of one type or another: draping plant-roots around the pool and in the filtration at least, plus a pot of long, filamentous plants in the deep-end and some nice lilies (in clean gravel this time) in the shallow.
 
Sorry Kdrun, didn't see you there- I agree that the life, health, happiness & lifespan of a pet (fish) are responsibilities, thus my thought of light stocking with rainbows & tetras & such over some lovely monster cats... though I've already got the clown loaches; theoretically a 40yr investment. There are a number of large fish collectors around so giving them away wouldn't be a problem, #1, and #2 the next place will be mine rather than a rental and it'll have a dedicated pond... at least. These are and would be our pets, so they would be accommodated in the next house like a dog or cat or donkey would be. Plus, the one place is a fat slice of paradise on recession pricing- if we get it I'd imagine being there for a long (long) time.
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