#and the fact they Absolutely need their water to stay below 70f and if you cant 100% guarantee your home will never be warmer

[bitchfitch]

while i was at Aquashella there were multiple tables selling axolotls and it reminded me about a handful of posts made by people who probably had good intentions about how so many Endangered axolotls would be Poached for the Evil Pet Trade if people kept liking them so much.

and y'all. that is so fucking funny because most people don't even know what a wild axolotl looks like. They're muddy brown/grey.

The white and pink leucistic ones are the descendents of lab animals that were collected for research around stem cells, limb regeneration, and a few other misc applications.

they're lucys because theyve been intentionally genetically modified. there is legit no reason to poach axolotls when the real all organic animal is muck grey and has the disposition of a prudish victorian noble woman while the ones already in the pet trade breed readily in captivity, can handle a larger range of water parameters, and come in way more weird colors. like "floresces green under black light bc of the jelly fish DNA some scientists gave it's grandparents to confirm Other genetic modifications were being incorporated into the animals DNA."

which you can buy as a baby for 70 bucks, and like btw, wildtypes go for around 45, and are usually the by-product of breeding for other colors due to how most morphs are comprised of recessive genes.

you can get combo adult breeder pair deals for 100$ and have a quadspmillion of the fuckers in a few weeks. and Not run the risk of getting massive fines and jail time for it like you would for poaching the ones that look like they came from a breeders soft cull bin.

[thegreatduggo]

Pool Logic

You do need decent hot weather to make an unheated pool appealing, so July and August are the sweet spot where the water temp should be around 80F (26C), but June and September are generally pretty warm and the water temp should be 70F (21F) or more and that’s really not too bad for a quick dip especially if the air temp is high. 

The month of May quite often has some surprisingly hot spells - we actually had a hotter spell in May (by my measurements) this year than we had in June. 

But I'm always on the arse end of things and my pool is no exception. I haven’t got round to opening it until the first or second week of July - which is daft because that's absolute prime-time for the pool. 

I think this year was the first time I've opened the pool before the start of July and that was only because Ozzy wanted to bring his missus and brood up here on July 1st. So, I put on a huge spurt to finish off the repair, prep and painting of garage eves and soffits. The paint chips and dust would have played havoc with the pool without the cover on. And then I moved onto sanding and painting the deck, which again would have caused major problems for the pool. I pushed myself very hard for about 3 weeks, working in the hottest time of the year with my Aussie Roo hat for protection.

It turned out to be a good day and was the sole good use of the pool this year, although, I didn’t even get in myself!

Aside from that, using the pool just seemed like a hassle, even on the hottest days. I'm wandering in and out of the house all day long, working on various jobs and projects and no time seems like the right time to take a break, get changed, jump in the pool, get bored, come out, walk downstairs, shower, dry, get changed and start again - fuck that!

One afternoon I drifted around on an inflatable lounger drinking a G&T, listening to the outdoor music and that was quite nice. One warm evening, I jumped in and swam around for 5 or 10 minutes and then a few days ago I dived into the cold water from the hot-tub and did a couple of breathless lengths - and that was basically my season! 

Some people joke that their best day was when they finally got their own swimming pool. But later on, their best day was superseded when they finally filled their pool in many years later! 

I've spent WAY more time maintaining and fixing the hot-tub and pool than I've spent using them - probably by a factor of 50. It's different for kids of course - they frigging love it and stay in for hours.

I’ve enjoyed the puzzle aspect of fixing the pool and hot-tub, tracking down all manner of obscure parts and learning how to fix them. My hot-tub is now 25 years old and it’s in much better shape than when I moved in 7 years ago. It’s been very challenging and I’m proud of all the tricky things that I’ve managed to fix it and the knowledge I’ve acquired in tracking down obscure parts of all types. 

The list has been long. The first thing I fixed was the ozonator. I had no idea what that even was or how to tell if it was working or not. But, I was fairly sure it was kaput - it looked very old and showed no signs of life. It was quite easy to source and was easy enough to replace. I still didn’t think it was working so I brought in an “expert”. He messed around replaced the one-way valve (which there was actually nothing with). I was skeptical but it gave me some insight and he did show me that the broken spin-jet could be replaced and he ordered me a new one. I installed it myself later. He also sold me a spa-vacuum that was much more effective than the one I already had.

I later found that the ozonator was not in fact working. The inlet tube was bizarrely wrapped around another pipe which compressed it and shut it off but had also caused it to rupture and was the cause of a leak - so much for the expert! 

I cut out the old tube and replaced it, so now the ozonator worked and the leak was fixed at the same time.

Next, I built a new set of stairs into the tub. The old set just about worked but were completely rotten. The new ones are solid as hell and weigh in at a hefty 90 lbs!

Having fixed that leak, I found there was another one. I couldn’t see where it was coming from. In the end, I took the side panels off and took a close look inside. I could see the location of the drip but couldn’t see anything that I could mess with. Out of options, I burrowed into the foam insulation around the drip and I was then able to tie it down to the wall-jet - ahhh! Now I see.

I built a custom tool to tighten up the wall-jet. It worked well and I was able to tighten it but the leak continued. I went back a second time to tighten it up and this time the wall-jet snapped off completely - Oh shit!

After a lot of searching, I found a part that was not a proper match but looked like it might work - it didn’t. Back to the drawing board. Next time round I found an exact match. It’s often hard to tell if you’re buying the right part from the pictures and quite often you just go for it and hope for the best. 

I fitted the new part with the new gasket and plenty of silicone grease and it still leaked. To give myself more options, I had also bought some silicone gaskets off another web site that turned out to be 1/8″ too small, but they were flexible and they could be stretched over the fitting. I reinstalled the wall-jet using one of those and that fixed the leak.

After that, I found that there were openings in the hot-tub frame that had allowed water and dirt to get into the frame around the hot-tub rim. That had resulted in a surprising amount of soil gathering inside the base of the tub frame. I cleaned that out, sealed those gaps and the whole hot-tub rim with clear silicone and then re-painted the rim.

Then I found that the a lot of the hot-tub frame was rotting away at the base and in some places ants had also eaten away chunks of the frame at the top of the frame as well. I drenched the infestation with insecticide then hammered in new wood bracing under the rim before putting in new support struts in on that corner.

The 10″ filter cap was badly cracked and a first I first fixed it with super-glue. That held for a while but it wan’t that strong. Later on I made a large patch out of PVC from a storage bin and glued that on with Gorilla glue, which made for a strong repair.

The integral drinks bucket holder had come away from the tub allowing water to get inside the frame and the removable bucket itself would rise up and start jumping around as water got into the container below it. I chocked out the bucket holder with wooden blocks and glued it in place with Gorilla Glue then I drilled hols in the bucket itself so that it wouldn’t lift up when water got underneath it.

During this time, the hot-tub was periodically tripping the contact breaker. This would power off the hot-tub and if I didn’t spot it for a while, the temp could fall substantially and eventually the tub could freeze, which could then split pipes and break pump components.

I again got the “expert” round. He didn’t fix anything and later I found that the fuse he’d replaced was actually two broken fuses pushed together that looked like a good fuse. I replaced that and it worked but after that. I started to get more frequent problems with the breaker cutting out.

The control circuit board was suspect. It has a number of mechanical relays and they would periodically stick. Tapping them and spraying with WD-40 definitely helped, but after a while it got too bad to ignore. I found old-stock parts on eBay, but I missed out on a couple of auctions while I was prevaricating. That pissed me off but it ultimately a good thing because I kept searching and a few months later I found that I could get a brand new solid state board that was supposedly compatible....much better. 

It did have all the right functions but the layout and operation was somewhat different. I had bought a new circuit board and a control panel for about $700. The old panel had a single 4 function switch: OFF, Main Jet Slow, Main Jet Fast, Main Jet Fast plus Jets 2, but the new one split out Jets 1 & 2 on separate buttons.

It’s all a bit confusing especially with a mix of 240V and 120V feeds in the unit. I labelled all the lines and wired it in as close as I could to the prior setup and put in the new control panel. It only partially worked. Only 120V was getting to pump #2 and on pump #1 the speeds were reversed.

I had to work out through the problem as best I could. I looked at the old and the new circuit diagrams and it turned out that some of the old wiring was wrong e.g. there was a fuse on pump #2, that is not meant to be there - it should be on the blower (don’t ask me why). I fixed that and I rerouted the power to get 240V to pump #2 and got it to work, then I flipped the power wires inside the motor itself to switch slow and fast. I needed to do it that way because it flips from 120V to 240V so flipping the wires on the controller itself would not work.

After that, the main motor started to leak and started to get weak. It wasn’t possible to just replace the leaking wet-end because the Hayward connectors are no longer available. That meant I had to cut out the old connectors. I bought cutters to cut out the old piping and new connectors and unions. I got it all done but a couple of weeks later I saw that it was still leaking. 

I took off the wet-end and found that the gasket was crimped. I twisted it around to avoid the crimp, applied loads of silicone and tried again This worked, but in the meantime I complained to the vendor and they sent me an entire new wet-end which is now in my spares collection. A few weeks later, it was leaking yet again and after quite a bit digging, I saw that one of the old unions had a hair-line split that was causing the leak. I assembled a new outbound connection and switched it from an innie to an outie. I had to do it twice because one of the unions needed to be cut back to fit and although it worked, I had cut back too much. I kind of messed it up a second time because I installed it the wrong way round and then cut back the other side - that pissed me off, but it was actually fine - it still bugs me when I think about it though.

After that I progressively rebuilt the tub supports - many of which are very hard to access. I built a new near-side panel because the far end had been eaten away by ants. I had previously rebuilt the front panel to make it fit better. All the screws had been buried into the wood and the fastening holes were buggered up so I sorted all that out but all the panels should eventually be replaced. I put that job on hold because it all looks pretty good once I repainted it and besides I had enough on my plate.

Shortly after that the blower....well....blew up. Again the connectors are not available, so the old one had to be cut out. I couldn’t put it back where it had been once I had cut out the old one and added in the safety valve. I don’t feel that the safety valve is really needed but I had bought it and I wanted to do it right. The new fitment was better than the old one though. It had been fastened to a metal plate and a loose wooden stake. 

The last fix was to replace a broken spin-jet. 

Parts of it could do with another lick of paint and I should replace some of the panels, but the existing ones are not that bad and they still look fine, so what’s the hurry....

The tub is in pretty good shape considering all it’s been through and the lack of maintenance until I arrived on the scene. It looks good, it’s solid, everything works, it doesn’t leak, it’s big and spacious and I’ll keep it running until it fully expires. In the words of Blur, it gives me an enormous sense of well-being and when I fart...well, no one can prove a damn thing!