Quick Answer:
Want to keep frogs out of your swimming pool? Here are some surefire methods! Build a fence, use a pool cover and safety covers, trim your lawn, and change the water. Remember to turn off the lights and maybe use a FrogLog.
Give home remedies like vinegar or citric acid a try and set up frog traps – these really do work! Plus don’t forget to maintain the chemical balance in your pool. Read on for all the details and some more tips.
Frogs in Your Pool Can be Unhealthy
Other than the visual cringe, frogs in your pool can also severely affect the health of your swimming pool. Frogs can carry dangerous diseases like salmonella that can even be fatal if there is no timely medical intervention.
Frogs in your pool would also mean you will be encouraging the growth of algae. Has algae caused your pool water to turn green? Find out how to clean a green pool here.
Frogs are bound to lay eggs and produce tadpoles, these creatures in turn block sunlight into the pool from a certain residue they leave behind. Lack of sunshine is infamous for encouraging the growth of algae.
While algae are healthy for the ecosystem in general, pool owners will certainly want to keep the green growth out of their pools. Besides, if you have pets, some species of frogs may even be poisonous to them.
I have a series of articles to help you get rid of certain pests that can invade your pool – worth checking out:
- How to Get Rid of Worms in Your Pool
- How to Keep Ducks Out of Your Pool
- How to Keep Birds Away from a Swimming Pool
- Tips to Keep Mosquitoes Away from Your Pool
Some of these may sound funny but they can become serious issues for some pool owners.
Ways to Keep Frogs Out of Your Pool
Now that it is abundantly clear why you want to keep your pool clear of frogs, let’s get into the ways in which you can avoid these amphibians from making your pool their slimy home.
Build a Fence
One of the easiest and most effective ways to keep frogs and other critters out of your pool is to build a fence around it. In fact, it may be helpful to build a fence all around your yard.
However, it is important to build a fence that covers all the gaps on the ground level. It should also, preferably, go deeper into the ground to keep even rodents with sharp teeth and digging abilities out. Chain link fences will not be any help in these situations.
Use a Swimming Pool Cover
Pool covers are a great way to keep these creatures out and will also keep your pool free of dried leaves and dirt. Using a pool cover will also reduce the amount of time you may have to spend physically keeping the water clean.
If, after every use, you put the pool cover back on it would be enough to clean and sanitize the pool once a month or once every fortnight. But while using a pool cover, you should consider adding safety covers to avoid any accidents.
Pets or younger children may slip into the pool and get trapped under the cover. Safety covers can help prevent this.
Trim Your Lawn
Frogs like to hide in dark and cool places when they are not lounging in the water. If there are tall grass patches and plants around your pool, that is a spot frogs may want to hide in.
It is important to keep your lawn trimmed and mow it often to prevent frogs and other creatures from getting too comfortable in the tufts. If you notice that the grass is becoming slightly thick, you should trim it in the next two or three days.
Change the Water
Whenever you clean the pool, it is important to change the water if possible. Changing the water will also keep the water moving and allow the pool to have fresh water more often.
But other than the herculean task of emptying your pool out and filling it again, you can also start your pump for a few hours so the water keeps moving. If you can afford to install a water feature like a fountain, this is one of the best and most effective ways of keeping the water running.
Keeping the water moving keeps insects and smaller critters out of the water – see my article on how to get rid of water bugs for more details. When there are no insects in the water, frogs will not have any source of food in there.
Turn off the Lights
In a similar effort as the one in the last section, turning the lights off will also keep insects out of the pool. On summer nights, you will notice that flies and insects congregate around light sources. When you keep insects out of the pool, you will also automatically keep frogs out of the pool.
Use a FrogLog
Sometimes the poor creature may have made its way into the pool by accident, but cannot find its way out. For younger frogs, it may be difficult to hop out of the pool. A FrogLog is a good way to aid the little creatures out.
This is like a small ramp that you place at the edge of the pool that gives them a better launching pad to jump out of the pool.
While this does not keep the frogs out of the pool – it will give them a way out of the pool in case they are trapped there by accident. What’s more, they are also really cute!
Home Remedies to Keep Frogs Out Of Pool
There are several non-toxic home remedies you can try to keep these hopping critters out. Some of the common and effective remedies you can try that will be harmful to them but will not affect you, young children, or pets are:
Vinegar: Vinegar is acidic so it irritates frog skin and hence should keep them out of the water since the pool will become hostile to them. You should add vinegar, especially to the parts where frogs like to congregate though this is something you may have to do every night.
Citric Acids: If frogs come in direct contact with citric acid, it may kill them. You do not want to deal with frog corpses in your pool, but spraying citric acid into the water will dilute it enough that the frogs don’t die but they will certainly stay away from the water.
Salt: Salt is toxic for frogs. They will certainly avoid salt, but this is not something you can add to the water as it will become salty and therefore difficult to swim in. Make a saltwater solution and spray it around the pool to keep the frogs out. But be careful as too much salt will also be bad for plants in your yard and around the pool.
Frog Traps for Pools
Frog traps are essentially like rat traps and should be the last resort you should turn to. The worst thing about a rat trap is that you have to deal with the trapped rodent after – a very ugly situation.
But if you cannot get the frogs out using any other means, you can turn to this unpleasant method as a last resort. A frog trap is an apparatus into which a frog may jump in because of some kind of bait, but will not be able to jump out of.
The traps are also used to catch lobsters and crawfish (by professional fishermen) but they are also useful for catching frogs.
Parting Words
The methods that have been described above are some of the best ways to keep frogs out of your pool. Frogs are a menace if you are a pool owner and there are several other things you will have to deal with if you have a frog problem on your hands.
If you have had a problem with frogs in your pool the chances are that your water quality might not be the best! It’s a good idea to shock your swimming pool after any kind of contamination. All is explained in that guide.
However, it must be mentioned that these methods are a way to keep frogs away from a pool but you also need to maintain the chemical balance of the water and keep it sanitized.
The methods described above are in addition to the normal chlorine and other chemical treatments of the pool.
Last update on 2025-03-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
