SeaKlear AP71 WinterPill Winterizer Pill, Translucent Light Yellow, Pack of 1

Reviews seem to be one or the other of two extremes. “My pool was green when I took the cover off.” or “My pool was crystal clear when I took the cover off.” I’m with the “It works.” crowd. I closed my above ground pool in September even though it was still warm enough to swim because I was going out of town for six weeks and I didn’t want to have to deal with it in the cold at the end of October. I followed the instructions, tossed the pill into my pool, 15X4, and put the cover on. I checked it now and then and the water continued to be clear month after month. March 12, about six months after closing the pool, we had a heck of a storm come through. Plenty of rain, but it was the wind that made the news. They said we hadn’t had winds like this for a decade. My cover came off and blew into the pool. This is one of those covers that looks more like a big round tarp with a steel cable that tightens around the side of the pool. (Thank goodness it went in the pool or it would likely have ended up in the next county.) As expected, a LOT of dirt and debris ended up in my pool. March 14 the winds had subsided and I decided I needed to get to work on the pool before all that dirt and debris becomes a permanent part of it. I took the cover out of the water and stared in dismay at all the debris in the pool. That was when I noticed it. If not for the dirt I have no doubt that the water would have been 100% clear. So that’s early September to mid March. Six months. That’s what is claimed by the product and it seems to be what I got. Except for about a three square foot section on one wall of the pool. There I saw a patch of green growth. To be fair, this is the side of the pool that gets the most sun and it has been almost exactly six months since I put the Pool Pill in the water. So, the Pool Pill advertises that it last six months. In my case, it appears that is the far limit. It’s March and I still have a lot of work cleaning out all that dirt, but the Pill does seem to have done it’s job. If I hadn’t had to close my pool early then I probably could have gone until April, but I suspect I still would have seen the beginnings of algae growth. This is the first time I’ve tried the pill and I think it did it’s job well. I didn’t quite get the full six months out of it unscathed, but I think it did a splendid job. No chemicals, except for the pill, and no running the pool filter all this time. In contrast, in the summer I run my filter 24/7 and am always vacuuming and adding chemicals yet I can still get algae blooms and I resort to shocking the water. If I wasn’t doing all this stuff all summer, what would my pool be like? Yet, the Pool Pill kept my water clear for six months all by itself with no help and no intervention from me. Next year I’ll buy two pills so I don’t have to worry as the pool closure nears six months. I’ll toss one in when I close it and toss another in four months later. I intend to close the pool in October this year, but prefer not to open it until end of April or early May. Pushing the limits of a single Pill so I’ll go with the two pill thing. If not for the wind storm I wouldn’t have all this work cleaning out my pool. Normally, to start up my pool, I just vacuum any dirt that made it’s way into the water, drop in a couple of chlorine tabs, a bag of shock and about thirty ounces of Dawn dish soap to kill any tiny wildlife that might take up residence in my pool. (The soap sticks to them and suffocates them.) Another benefit of Dawn is that it breaks the surface tension of the water so flying things like wasps can’t land on the waters surface so they don’t hang around the pool. No coming up from under water to feel a wasp sinking its stinger into your neck. I use Dawn all summer. All I know is that after using the Pool Pill for six months and doing nothing else I’m not having to scrub a pool full of algae. Having that one small patch of green algae simply tells me that six months is the high limit as far as the Pill is concerned. As far as I’m concerned, the Pool Pill worked. Just a thought: I have a couple of small waterfalls in my backyard. They can tend to grow algae pretty fast and clog things up like cholesterol in a coronary artery. I have no fish so I just add a piece of chlorine tablet to them to kill the algae. I only do it a few times in the winter but pretty much weekly in the summer. I wonder what would happen if I tossed Pool Pills into the wells. Yeah, we’re going to find out.

I've used the WinterPill Winterizer for my 18x36 in-ground pool for several years now and I’m seriously impressed. Closing the pool is a breeze, just pop it in and let it do the work. The water stayed crystal clear all winter long, and when we opened in the spring, there was barely any cleanup needed. No nasty film, no heavy chlorine smell, and definitely no green water. I love how easy it is, no measuring, no mixing, no lugging around multiple bottles of chemicals. It’s compact, effective, and truly saves time. I’ll be using this every year from now on. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a simple and reliable winterizing solution for their pool!

I used this Winterizer last year here in NC and it worked great! From November to March my above ground pool was covered. The water stayed clear, and I only had a small area that had the beginnings of some algae, which I thought was great for 5 months with no care. It is super easy to open, after that, just plunk it in the water and cover. Great value!

Product seems to work as described. Pool water crystal clear in the spring when we uncover the pool. We've used this winter pill for the past few years with success! This year, the only problem is that it arrived with no instructions and no piercing tool. Not really an issue since we've used it before and we just used a nail to pierce the hole in the bottom. But, I hope they fix the issue for next year!

worked as advertized

*****1/14/20 UPDATE: Due to my pool cover collapsing, I decided to just take it off. I found the Aqua Pill floating on top of the water with clear liquid in it, which I thought was odd. I closed my pool 11/7/19, so it has only been a couple of months. This product is supposed to last from closing until opening in the Spring and is supposed to slowly release the winter chemicals into the pool throughout the winter. Well, my pill was completely empty of all chemicals and only had pool water in it. The top of my water had an oily-looking sheen on the top, which went away after some heavy rains. The water is still crystal clear but I highly doubt this contributed to it (water still has a high chlorine content since I closed pool at shock level). I don’t know if I just received a faulty product or what happened. I punctured the holes with the puncturing tools provided and tossed it into the pool, as mentioned in my initial review below. The chemicals started to spill out really fast and that likely explains why my “pill” was empty. I removed a star since it appears that others seem to really like this product and mine could’ve just been a dud. I do not recommend this product, though. The key to not opening up to a green swamp in the spring is to bring your chlorine to “shock” level (you can look this up as it depends on pool size and other factors), making sure your pH and alkalinity are at proper levels, and closing as late as you can. Using a Poly 60 algaecide is also extremely helpful. This pill alone IS NOT ENOUGH to winterize your pool. You need other winterization chemicals as well. Save your money and skip the Aqua Pill!***** MY ORIGINAL REVIEW: This WinterPill came without the packaging as shown in the photos. It was in a plastic baggie with a ribbon tied instead. No big deal! It contained both of the puncture apparatuses. The “Pill” is MUCH larger in size than I expected! It is about the size of a softball. Make sure when you puncture this product, you hold it over the pool water!! When I used the blue tool to poke the bottom, a bunch of the liquid started coming out fast!! It came without instructions but I googled it and did exactly as their website said. ****SEE PRODUCT UPDATE AT TOP****

We love this product and its simplicity! We have been buying the Winterizer Pills for about 4 years now. Once we clean pool and have it ready to close, we simply drop this in, cover pool and wait until spring. I don't have pictures but I can tell you we take the cover off and the water is still crystal clear.

This is an AMAZING product! I was very skeptical, but now I am a believer! We bought a house with an above ground pool so pool opening and closings are totally new to us. We opened the pool a month after we moved in and it was a nightmare! We think the pool had been closed dirty, or not covered with an actual pool cover or something because it resembled a pond more than it did a pool! It took 4 weeks to get it clean and I did not want to go through that again! About a month before we closed our pool with this Winterpill, our automated robot vacuum broke. Our manual hose vac doesn't work that great so unfortunately, I was not able to get the pool 100% clean or balanced prior to closing it. I would vacuum it clean, and the next day there would be algae at the bottom. I wasn't sure why I couldn't get a handle on it, but I was sick of it and I just wanted it closed so I didn't have to vacuum it in the freezing cold anymore! The day we put the pool cover on our pool was vacuumed, but it was not crystal clear. It was milky. I can't remember if the Winterpill required 1 or 2 hole piercings, but when we opened the package we lost the little thing that is supposed to be used to pierce the ball. So, because the pool wasn't 100% perfectly clear, and the fact that I didn't know if we pierced the hole(s) too big or too small, I wasn't sure what we would find when we opened our pool. I was just hoping and praying it would be clean. I expected at least a little green, but it was actually clear blue! I couldn't believe it! These photos were taken in the moments as we were removing the cover. There were a few leaves at the bottom (maybe they were in there when we closed it and we couldn't see them because it was milky), but other than the leaves, the water was clear and blue! Our pool was closed from the end of November (we procrastinated!) and opened early May. (6 months)