10 Ways to Keep Frogs Out of Pool
Your crystal clear pool water is highly enticing to frogs as it looks comfortable for them and is free of their natural predators.
What’s more, the chances are you will have some bugs buzzing over the water, meaning there is food for the frogs, which gives them more reasons to get into your pool.
However, frogs can be a real pain. Once they get in, it is hard for them to jump out, given the high pool walls, and so you will end up with dead frogs floating in your water.
The good news is that there are several tactics you can use to keep out frogs from your water to ensure they never become a problem for you.
Why it is Crucial to Keep Frogs Out of the Pool
Frogs do not cause any harm when in your backyard, but they can become a massive problem once they get into your pool water. Here are some common frog problems that make it crucial to keep them out of your pool.
1. Frogs Can Carry Bacteria and Diseases
Frogs are wild animals that can carry bacteria and diseases, which they will transfer to your pool water and make it unsanitary.
At first, the problem might not look serious as your filtration system will handle it, but as more frogs get into the water, your water quality will dip significantly.
Also, most frog habitats are often in murky water full of algae. Hence, frogs can easily lead to an algae bloom in your pool by carrying some of it into the pool.
2. Frogs Will Lay Eggs in the Pool Water
Like many other amphibians, frogs breed fast and lay eggs within a short time. Worst still, they lay hundreds of eggs, so just having a few frogs in the pool can live it with thousands of eggs within a short period.
These eggs act as food for other critters, and therefore you will end up with a bigger problem than just frogs.
3. You End Up with Dead Frogs in the Pool
Swimming pools have high walls with no slopes around the edges like natural water bodies such as lakes. Therefore, once frogs get in, it will be hard for them to get out, so a majority end up dying in the pool.
Dead frogs are a breeding ground for germs and bacteria, which can make your pool unsanitary. Also, they will attract other animals as they are an easy food source and can be pretty unpleasant to remove.
10 Ways to Keep Frogs Out of Pool
Here are some of the easiest and best ways to keep frogs out of your swimming pool.
1. Switch Off Pool Lights
Light attracts critters like frogs and bugs, so leaving your pool lights on longer than necessary is one reason frogs locate the pool.
Also, frogs hunt bugs, and so as the light attracts more of them, they will follow them into the pool as they look for food.
Therefore, simply switching off the pool lights can make it hard for the frogs to locate the pool, effectively keeping them out.
2. Ensure Proper Water Circulation
Keeping your pool water moving is an effective way of keeping frogs out. Frogs love stagnant or still water as it attracts mosquitos and other bugs that they eat.
Running your pump to ensure water circulation also discourages the frogs from laying eggs in the pool as their instincts will tell them that they will not be safe.
A pool pump timer like the Woods 50015WD Heavy Duty Digital Plug-in Timer can help keep water moving by ensuring the pump runs long enough every day.
3. Cover Your Pool
When you cover your pool, you make it hard for pesky critters like frogs and other animals like ducks to get in.
The only reasons frogs come to your swimming pool is to cool off in the water or hunt for bugs. With a pool cover, either will not be possible and so they will hop away.
However, make sure the cover you choose is top-quality, like the Blue Wave BWC750, as you do not want something that will tear easily and leave spaces for frogs to get to the water.
4. Maintain Your Pool Regularly
Maintaining your pool ensures the water remains clean, which is one of the easiest ways to get rid of frog eggs and things like bugs that can attract frogs to your pool.
Keeping your water free of bugs means there is nothing for the frogs to eat in your pool, and so they will find it unattractive.
5. Enclose Your Pools
Unlike other problematic animals likely to end up in your pool, such as ducks, frogs cannot fly in, so simply enclosing your pool with a high enough fence will keep them out.
A good pool fence with an easy-to-use gate that ensures people can still access the water is the best. Also, make sure your fence mesh does not have large gaps, as frogs can still squeeze in and end up in the water.
6. Heat Your Pool
While it is true frogs can survive in quite extreme conditions, they hate warm water. Most will prefer to hang out in a cool body of stagnant water.
Therefore, simply heating your water can be an effective deterrent for frogs. Besides keeping frogs away, a heated pool is also more comfortable, and it allows you to enjoy some nice nighttime dips.
7. Make It Easy for Frogs to Escape
Sometimes the only reason you will get frogs in your pool is that they find it hard to escape. Consequently, creating an escape route for them using things like frog logs can be very useful.
Frog logs will allow frogs and other animals like mice to escape from the pool if they fall in accidentally. It ensures you never have to deal with dead frogs in your pool water.
8. Keep the Bugs Away
Bugs are what will most likely draw frogs to your pool. Therefore, by simply keeping them away, you can prevent the frog problem.
You can use a commercial or homemade bug repellant or a zapper to deal with the bugs. However, remember to remove any bugs that end up dead in your pool, as they can still attract frogs.
9. Create a Chemical Barrier
It is always best to avoid any method that involves using a product or chemical that can harm the frogs even as you try to keep them out.
Luckily, you will not need to use any toxic chemicals to make an anti-frog repellant, as you can quickly create one by mixing salt and vinegar.
Spraying this mixture around the pool’s edges will repel frogs. Once this mixture hardens on the pool surface, it will react with the skin cells on the frog’s feet and cause a temporary burning sensation. However, despite being irritating, it does not harm them.
10. Eliminate All Their Hiding Places
The frogs that end up in your swimming pool will come from the area around it, and so you can easily prevent the problem by eliminating all their hiding places.
Some of the most common places where frogs reside are overgrown weeds, tall grasses, leaf piles. Therefore, trimming yards that are overgrowing with grass or weeds and removing any leaf piles in your backyard will ensure no hiding spots for the frogs.
What Not to Do
No matter how big of a problem frogs might be for you, you should not do certain things as you try to keep them out. These things include the following.
- Using Pesticides: You should never use pesticides to deal with frogs as besides not being effective, they can cause more problems such as killing plants in your yard.
- Install Scarecrows: While scarecrows and inflatable pool toys can effectively scare ducks and other birds, they are ineffective in deterring frogs.
- Set Inhumane Traps: As annoying as frogs might be, they hardly pose any danger to you, and the only reason they are in your pool is they are looking for food. Therefore, you should not set any inhuman traps that can harm them. Also, many species are endangered, so you might be contributing to their extinction by harming or killing them.
Conclusion
Frogs can be a problem when they end up in your pool. Besides the obvious sanitary issues they bring, they also end up laying thousands of eggs in the water, and many will die and give you the unpleasant job of skimming out dead frogs.
Luckily, they are pretty easy to keep out of your swimming pool with one or a combination of the methods above. All the tactics above are effective and inexpensive, and you only need to decide which one works best for your particular situation.
