10-Inch Square Pool Skimmer Cover, White

This is an amazing product! I used to feel horrible when I found a frog or large bugs dead in the skimmer. NO MORE! I felt it was my responsibility to provide an escape for them, so I found this Critter Skimmer. No more death in the skimmer box now! The creatures usually escape on their own, since I don't see them and they are not dead in the basket! Once in a while, a large frog will be waiting on the spiral stair case of this unit, and it's so nice to reach in, rinse it off with clean water, and set him free! As if saving the creatures isn't enough, we have less filter issues now that the beetles and large bugs are not stuck in the filter basket. :) The only downside is that the staircase CAN be broken. (I discovered this with the first one I bought!) I had placed the unit on it's side on the pool's cement, and the staircase snapped in half! I was not able to put it back together effectively enough to last a long time, so got a new one the next year. I place it down gently now! I got this along with a FrogLog for the top of the water's surface and our pool is safe and clean now!!

After a year of constantly rescuing frogs, insects and snakes from the pool and making all sorts of rescue ramps and floats, we discovered this. It is brilliant!!! Not one single creature found in the pool since installing this. Like one or two other reviewers, we found that the item was a couple of inches or so short for our pool set up so we stretched it out with a wooden dowel. (See photo). It works perfectly with this, but as we had to adapt it ourselves, we did drop one star from the ease to assemble rating. If you’ve got a pool, don’t hesitate. You need one of these! ( pool suppliers, shame on you for not fitting these as standard!)

This has saved so many frogs and who knows what else. Our pool seemed to be a beacon for small creatures and we'd find many frogs dead the day after a rain. Since installing this, we've had a much smaller number of dead frogs in the pool and none in the basket. The only ones that die are the ones who avoid the skimmer somehow. The parts snap together, but it's difficult to get it to snap. I was afraid I was going to break it while trying, so mine isn't exactly assembled perfectly, but it still works. All in all, I'm very satisfied that this is saving lives and making my life easier.

I do a lot of shopping at Amazon, and have been for many years now. This is the 1st product that has motivated me to write a review. It is that good. This is a sturdy product that couldn't be easier to use. There is no assembly required, it goes from out of the box, right into the ground. We have had this product installed for roughly 1 week now, and I could not be happier with the result. A little background: We have a large in-ground pool that is responsible for drowning a variety of creatures (frogs, toads, mice, chipmunks, moles, even a small skunk!) We have managed to find ways to keep the mammals (mostly) safe, but the poor amphibians just don't seem to "get it". Every morning there were typically 4-6 dead frogs either in the filter basket or floating in the pool. The morning after a rainstorm looked like we were trying to make dead frog/toad soup! Yuck. I found this product in a catalog, did some further research on the company's site (just the product name & dot com) and decided to give it a try (here on Amazon of course because I sprung for Prime and now hate paying shipping). It really is as straight forward as it seems. You replace your current skimmer cover with this one, and when frogs fall into the pool, they are able to crawl up the ramp and onto the rest of their little froggie day. No more expensive frog life guards required. My only concern is that it leaves out my fine fat toads. But they can easily wait on the ramp for rescue. Obviously for this to be an effective cover the hole cannot accommodate the grapefruit sized hoppers. Personally I suspect the big ones are just too lazy to get out on their own anyway. Technical details: The actual hole size that must be breached by the escaping frog is 2" wide and 1 1/4" tall. This seems to be a good size, and like I said, if they can't make it out the hole they can rest on the ramp. So either way, the end result is the less dead critters. Result: We have had more rain than sun lately, so I feel like this has been a good test of the Critter Skimmer, and far so good! As of this morning there has only been one dead frog! He was tiny, about the size of a quarter, and may not have even found the filter. Every morning when we empty the basket there are some living frogs hanging out on the ramp. Now, not all of my frogs have grasped the idea that they can continue up the ramp and go out the hole to freedom. This is not a fault of the product, but undoubtedly froggie user error. I'm assuming they will get better at that eventually. Even if they don't though, it is no hassle to pull them out since they are clinging to the ramp anyway. Why only 4 stars? Because I'm a tough grader. If my scale is 1-5: one being Abysmal Product-Beware , and 5 being the Holy Grail of Consumer Delight, This is a solid 4. 2019 Edit after 9 years of working hard, we broke the ramp off last week. I assumed our frog population was down, because I hadn’t seen as many frogs in the pool. After the carnage I just witnessed in the skimmer basket, it has apparently just been working hard at saving my frogs, toads, chipmunks and mice with zero effort on my part. Off to add another one to my cart.

I hated having to scoop frogs out of our pool who drowned before I got to them. First thing I noticed was that it was rare to find any more dead so it absolutely worked. Mine has lasted way longer than I thought it would. You have to be careful lifting it not to damage the spiral stair. Occasionally one gets in that was too big to go through the opening at the top, but he'll be sitting on the stair waiting....Alive!

This is my second one and is a must-have for anyone with a pool. I am traumatized whenever I have to fish out a dead animal from our pool skimmer. Even worse, once, I had about a dozen frogs in there...hopping over each other to get out. Since having this skimmer cover with ramp, very rarely does anything die in my skimmer. It was a daily occurrence until I got this thing. When assembling, be careful when snapping the ramp to the cover as it can easily break (speaking from experience). You do need to use some force but again, be careful. Lastly, not all frogs can fit out of the escape hole and not all frogs want to come out using the ramp. Some will just hang out on the ramp itself so if you're squeamish, you may want to pick it up with caution. I use this with the floating escape ramps near my skimmer to reduce the casualties.

Seemed to be what I was looking for. I already have Frog Logs near my skimmer opening but wanted something as a last ditch just in case of the frog not being able to get to one of those. The ramp is about 2 inches too short. To have it reach will make me have to keep my pool at the maximum water level which isn’t really feasible at all times. If you live in areas where water is constantly evaporating, this can be an issue. The manufacturer of this has ramp extensions on their website which is kind of not a great deal as the shipping is more than the actual item. Is this a money grab? I don’t know. The extended ramp should be what is part of the item instead of an additional purchase or at least listed on Amazon in Prime. This is a little overpriced but I have to think of the critters and not my wallet.

We have an in-ground pool, and also a very large pond. We have removed a countless amount of dead frogs in the two years we have owned the pool. We have tried keeping all outdoor lights off in hopes of not attracting bugs that the frogs may want to eat, and also have used the popular "frog log" without much (if any) luck at all. I bought this critter skimmer at the beginning of the season and have removed just TWO frogs over the past three months! Which is absolutely AMAZING! And both of those frogs were alive in the skimmer but were just too large to climb up the little ramp and out of the hole. They were sitting at the bottom of the ramp, just waiting for someone to let them out. Seriously... I am just a regular person, who paid full price for this thing on a very slim amount of hope that it would work, and it has surprised me by making our pool almost completely frog free.