Yes, good idea, that's why I feel a little bad throwing a couple of "killer balls." Is the pool gunnite or liner? How well does the soil perc? Holes in gunnite or vinyl liner might drain through adequately, depending on how well your soil percs. Around here, where we have clay soil and vinyl liner pools, such a pithouse would likely fill with water without the pressure of the water within the liner to keep it out. The drain, without modifications, won't help much. It probably comes back up to deck level where it attaches to the pool pump. The line would simply fill with drain water. You would have to keep a pump on the other end to keep it functional. Alternatively, you could figure a way to dig this drain line out and run it out to daylight, but this would require that the pool be set on a hillside or steep slope. If you can figure out this drain issue, the issue of water seeping in wouldn't be such a big deal. Finally, to comfortably work, you'll need perhaps 5 feet of headroom on the sides. My pool, like most pools, has a shallow end 3 to 3.5 feet deep. To get enough headroom, you would either need to dig out the shallow end or build about a 3 foot sidewall all the way around the perimeter of the pool. These aren't insurmountable obstacles, just a couple of potential problems that come to mind. Give us more details on the pool and let us throw around some more specific thoughts and ideas.

I emptied out the pool gradually on the front lawn with no ill effects to the grass. When water accumulates because of rain, the L.A. County (think this who it is) comes once a month and sprays the water to kill mosquito larvae. If you owe a house, they already take out a fee in your house taxes for the abatement program. He said the spray was safe (right). The original plan was to fill in the pool, but the agent said that permits are required and if you do it on your own w/o permits and get caught, it will cost lots of $ and a long time to fix. I also used mosquito dunks and mosquito fish in the pool, but mostly immediately empty it out after rain because I don't want them spraying anything. Good luck.

Not really...but okay...There was a mention of "wildlife" moving in...so I assumed living frogs, tadpoles, possible turtles and such would add to the balance? I just disasembled my "water garden" just 500 gallons with Only potted Cannas, and blue eyed grass (NO FISH), no soil just gravel and lava rock, and filtered... The water was very Clear...no algae except the carpet on the sides....but there was at least 4" of silt in the bottom after just 1 year....I can't imagine what a full size pool would have in it after 5 years or so, as I assume the plan isn't to drain and clean yearly, but that is my assumption.. I have been known to be wrong before...so looking forward to see how it turns out! Personally...I love my ponds way more than the swimming pool...so I'm supportive of the change over...Sorry if I ruffled any feathers...I for one just like to collect all data out there good and bad before I dive into something...Just helps to prepare me for worse case scenarios..I hope it turns out just as you like...I have not met anyone yet that hasn't given into the urge to get bigger fish..when they get a bigger pond :) Just usually the natural course of things, feeding the fish is so much of the enjoyment..and It sounded like you already got a bit of the bug..with the betta pond.....My suggestion is to gather lots of information...then do whatever makes you happy....again...sorry Rabbit if we disagree..I'll bail out and watch from afar...One more mention though...If you do it and go with a "diff. fish" I suggest a few Ciclids...they are beautiful and aggresive eaters....so even with a few they will be fun to watch eat!!!!!! The lagoon at Animal kingdom has them....wow spectacular! Blue, yellows...just gorgeous...sorry there I go again talking about fish...they are my passion...can't help myself! Good luck!

@ kgiov > Hysterical! Thanks for sharing. We went through an infestation about 4 years ago. I just saw a few nits and 2 black dots in my daughter's hair and a 2 nits on my son. I am treating all of us like it's an infestation so that it doesn't BECOME one! The things that worked best for us last time were: washing all bedding and clothing in hot water and drying on hot heat; putting stuffed animals and such in bags in the garage for 3 weeks; Using LiceGuard Robi Comb. It "zaps" anything in the hair. LOL! I found it at Walmart near the eye-glass section, and they are sold them online, too. AND What killed off the live lice for us was a combination of what a pediatrician recommended and a home remedy a friend recommended. The pediatrician recommended that we follow-up treatment by putting an excess of Dippity-Do in the child's hair, letting it dry, and leaving it in overnight in order to suffocate whatever live lice were left. The home remedy that was recommended was saturating the hair with mayonnaise and then wrapping it tightly with Saran Wrap to suffocate whatever live lice were left. We couldn't find Dippity-Do, but we found a similar product at Rite-Aid (although I've seen it at Walmart, too) called La bella Styling Gel. It's in a tub and is light yellow color. We used the "Ultimate Hold" type. We parted the hair in little sections, saturating the roots first. [After the La bella, we used mayonnaise, too, "just to be safe." But, we won't do that again. The mayo melted once warm on the head and dripped.] Once we were done with the saturation, we combed the hair up at all the hairlines, and wrapped the head tightly with a great plastic wrap called Press 'N Seal, with the sticky side IN, pressing out the air bubbles as we went. Without a pillow (so they wouldn't slip down and pull off the plastic wrap), we lay them down on their bed on top of a towel for the night. [I've heard to leave the head wrapped "12-24 hours" since then. We'll probably do 12-14 hours tonight.] This did the trick. We wished we had done this (without the mayonnaise) and used the Robi Comb during from the beginning, as the Nix didn't do anything anyway. HTH