Of course it can be rust and rebar related. Rust spots will brush off and then come back in a few days. It is quite a normal process. The fact that it is there is not normal. It is most likely a tie wire on the rebar that did not get cut. Almost impossible to see unless to have a good QC guy prior to plaster. Many pools are plastered with exposed rebar. They simply paint it and plaster over it. The result is a piece of steel only an inch or two below the surface and if there is an imperfection in the surface, which pebble tec can easily have, you can get a spot. Yes, nails are all over the pool in construction. Concrete nails are used to secure bender board for tile and coping installation. Could be that too. If it's a tie wire, and you catch it early, it will not hit your rebar, but once it does, it will start corrosion there and it can get ugly. Have the plaster company check it out. They can usually chip it out and patch.

Janesm...if you'll have dogs swimming in the water who also love to drink the water, be sure to stay on top of your chlorine levels, even with a salt system. Normal, or typical levels should be just fine. Resist the temptation to add borates to your pool if your dogs are drinking a lot of the water unless/until you can train them not to. Borates are not necessary for a balanced pool but are sometimes advocated to add to pools with salt systems to moderate the pH rise inherent in those systems. Personally, I've had 2 pools with salt systems and have loved them both. My dogs love them too! No borates for us. Be sure your PB sets you up with the equipment that's made to use in a saltwater pool. If you utilize any stone, be sure it's NOT a soft or fairly porous stone. I'd also like to echo some of the previous comments about pool maintenance companies. Not all of them know what they are doing! We had a repair done (requiring a large drain of water)and the repairing company promised to return my pool to its pre-repair chemical status. I said, "No thanks," but they persisted. I ran my water tests prior to the repair and again after they had "re-balanced" my pool. What a crock! If I had not rebalanced my pool after them, I would have had a green pool in a few days and way too little salt to make my SWCG system work.

The salt is only there to provide sodium chloride so the chlorine generator can make chlorine. Putting salt in your pool will do nothing unless you have a generator to do something with it. It works like this.....salt is sodium chloride. Liquid chlorine (Chlorox or bleach) is sodium hypochlorite. Saltwater chlorine generators turn the sodium chloride (salt) into sodium hypochlorite (chlorine. The water is softer and you will notice a big diffrence in the feel of your skin and hair after you dry off. The salt won't damage your pool, but wait about 2 weeks to put it in the pool if the plaster is new.

BB - We are total rookies as this is our first dog. My first 3 recommendations are to socialize, socialize, and socialize. I thought we hit everything on the list and then he saw a propane tank and really woofed at it. Tonight, he saw it again and only had a minor woof. I expect, he won't react the next time. Whole Dog Journal had a nice list if you don't have one. We tried to have at least one socialization event each day - sometimes more but also gave him a break if he was tired Work with your vet as to when to start puppy classes and meet other dogs. We had a gated community (house). We had pet gates throughout the house. We set up the front part of the house as his exercise pen. He was only allowed in other parts of the house with supervision after he did his business. We slowly expanded his den to include most of the house. We keep the spare bedrooms and bath blocked for guests. Puppy proof your house to avoid the wires problem. You can purchase a bitter apple spray to use on objects to prevent chewing. I bought a bottle but only used it once on a corner of the house- we didn't crate while gone twice. The first time was fine but the second time-oops- he was teething and chewed a little bit of wood. Always keep the puppy in visual when not crated or in a pen. Initially our puppy would snag any shoe or glove. He didn't chew them but loved the smells. We would substitute one of his chew toys for the shoe. Now, he mostly leaves them alone - but occasionally, we will hear a ruckus and know he is up to no good - He knows the shoes are not his. (Early on, we did not leave them out) Definitely use a crate for sleeping and rest periods throughout the day. Puppies need lots of sleep. We would take the puppy outside, then bring him inside with us for 15-30 minutes for play time before returning to his "ex pen" area. We would crate for naps so he would not be disturbed. Whelping pads are helpful to put on the floor if you have carpeting. And definitely purchase enzyme sprays to use to clean up accidents. We had the carpet in his ex pen covered with pads and would toss them into the washer if he had an accident. Fortunately, he was house-trained relatively quickly except for a couple submissive piddles when we would have dog guests. I think he is over this problem. Again, work with your vet on when to start puppy kindergarten. We went to 2 different classes on round one. Both were helpful but didn't really give us the handling skills we needed for loose leash walking. We just started another class and the instructor had us walking perfectly in less than 15 minutes - so it is worth trying different classes if it fits the budget. We also do a drop in class for show dogs which has been very helpful as well. We don't know how much we will show him but for now it is good practice. We kept a freezer full of treats for teething. Kong Classics stuffed with kibble and topped off with yogurt and then frozen were a hit and kept him happy for quite some time. I also froze ice cubes with either kibble, rice or quinoa. Some people think ice might be too hard but I kept the cubes small. If I had any leftover low sodium broth, I would use for the ice cubes. I also had frozen beans and broccoli from the garden as well as small meatscicles. We had lots of training treats including home made puppy fudge - there are lots of recipes on the Internet using tuna, salmon, or liver. We worked hard on soft mouth activities and feeding drills. We did some hand feeding, bowl feeding(and adding treats while he was eating to assure he wasn't bowl protective), toy feeding and free feeding. I had read about using toys to slow down feeding and to keep him occupied. That is probably fine for food-driven dogs but this breed tends to not overeat, so had to figure out how to get the pup to eat. You can try different kibbles to find out what the dog likes to eat. Your pup is part GSD, so slowing down the eating might be good to prevent bloat. Currently, Gatsby is now 99% bowl fed. He had issues with pudding poop, so we give him a probiotic pill each day and a scoop of raw pumpkin on top of his food. When he was teething, we would freeze the pumkin scoops on a tray(so they didn't stick together) and then store them frozen. There are many good books and resources out there. We were fortunate to have several very experienced dog friends that we could use for resources. In the end, you have to make your own decisions as each book tells you something different. Ok - maybe, I should write a book on the Adventures of Dog Training for Rookies. I only hit the tip of the iceberg. Good luck. PS - Feel free to PM me through FB - Gatsby Picard - just mention GW pets as Gatsby usually only friends other Picards.