Lay My Hat

Okay I'm rural so I have wildlife. Some creatures are wonderful to witness and others less so. Rats for example. I know I cannot eradicate them completely because their burrows are all over the countryside surrounding my property as well as in multiple locations on my own land. However this trip I have found rat droppings on the pool terrace, and today I have fished droppings out of the pool itself. The pool chemicals are at optimum levels so are there any dangers in having these varmints pool-partying at night? Is there any risk to guests? Lyme's disease anyone?

Are you certain it's rats? Could it possibly be a large gecko or small lizard? Black poo, like mouse droppings on steroids

I Googled rat poo just for the evidence. It would have to be some gecko to measure up!

Not Lymes disease but Weils disease possibly, keep the chlorine level up but what is the Cyanuric acid stabiliser level (measured accurately NOT with dip strips)?

teapot wrote:Not Lymes disease but Weils disease possibly, keep the chlorine level up but what is the Cyanuric acid stabiliser level (measured accurately NOT with dip strips)?

Oops, lyme's is ticks isn't it?

My pool obsessive keeps the levels of Ph & chlorine to where they're supposed to be, but I've never heard of Cyanuric

Casscat wrote: My pool obsessive keeps the levels of Ph & chlorine to where they're supposed to be, but I've never heard of Cyanuric

Cyanuric acid is a chlorine sunscreen, it's purpose is to slow down the rate at which the sun burns up the chlorine.
You need a level of around 30-50ppm for max effect but it's in the multi action and choc products so it can build up in the pool water if that is how you chlorinate.

The chlorine can be made almost ineffective by the Cyanuric acid stabiliser (CYA) at normal pool levels 1-3 ppm of chlorine as it can have this effect it's important to measure the CYA level in the pool but dip strips cannot accurately measure this. By example a couple of years back I was called to a couple of pools that would not behave the CYA levels had crept up to 180 and 200 ppm so there was not enough chlorine to sanitise and kill the algae, test strips showed the CYA levels at 0 and 30-50ppm. To cure the situation a partial drain down of the water and re filling with fresh can be required.

The cheapest/best method to measure CYA levels is the vanishing dot type test. The CYA level is very important.

The kit my guy uses is one of those where you take water samples and then add drops of coloured liquid to each vial. This only measures Ph and chlorine.

Casscat wrote:The kit my guy uses is one of those where you take water samples and then add drops of coloured liquid to each vial. This only measures Ph and chlorine.

Known as an OTO test and it's not great for the chlorine test. The pH is fine but the actual chlorine being measured is total chlorine and not free available chlorine.

In a pool we need to know both, the free chlorine and the total. Free chlorine is the part available for sanitising the pool, total, as the name suggests is the free chlorine and the used up chlorine (Disinfection by products DBP's or combined chlorine)

It is perfectly possible to OTO test and show 3ppm of chlorine but the free available chlorine could be 0 especially if an algae bloom is just about to or has happened.

By taking regular tests of free chlorine and total chlorine we can spot problems before they become issues. A reading of more than 0.5ppm combined chlorine signals a problem.

Total chlorine level - free chlorine level = combined chlorine.

In a customers pool near Dordogne he reported a 1ppm of combined chlorine just before they were leaving for a week. If they hadn't shocked the pool and sorted this before they left they could have returned to a very green pool and upset guests not to mention the extra expense and sleepless nights.

It is a requirement in france to keep the combined chlorine levels below 0.6ppm (from memory) so really you do need to be able to measure free chlorine and the DPD1 test is fine for this.

We get large lizards around here, easily big enough to confuse their droppings with those of rats. Some sites I've googled indicate that lizard droppings have a white bit at the end, but that's not our experience. It very much depends on their diet - and whether our cat has scared the s... out of them

Get a feral cat! Our Big Tom is a super rat catcher. Though picking up the dismembered bits of rat isn't always a joy

Mouse
x

Mouse wrote:Get a feral cat! Our Big Tom is a super rat catcher. Though picking up the dismembered bits of rat isn't always a joy

Mouse
x

Quite a brave Mousie

Mousie
x

Per original post.
We have successfully used pesttechcentre.com products for the odd rodent. Useful for roaches & overwinter critters too.

Are you sure they're not gekko dropping? We find them all over the place at the moment

http://lonelygirltravels.com/2011/12/30 ... cko-turds/

I'd love to believe that they're gecko droppings lorca, but I fear they are not They're cunning bu99ers too - I've been out on the pool terrace, gone indoors to prepare lunch and returned to find a rat turd sitting smugly on my beach towel! Argh!