10-Inch Square Pool Skimmer Cover, White

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!)

After getting a pool installed this summer, I was quite sad to find dead, frogs and toads in the skimmers. When I found these on sale, I thought I would give them a try as I liked the idea that it fit right over the skimmers. Ever since I had installed them, no more dead, frogs!

I had read the other reviews and was ready to add a pvc pipe through the middle to extend the platform down, but it goes 1/3 into the water so I didn’t have to do that. No matter what we did, poor frogs, mice, and one little vol made its way into our pool and suffered a horrific death. I ran across this and knew I had to have it. Once an animal is in the skimmer there was no escape, until now. I just cleaned my basket and there weren’t even any bugs in it. Anything bigger (like the vol) wouldn’t have been able to crawl out, but it would have something to hold onto until I was able to let it out the next day. Thank you, to whomever came up with this idea. I’m telling everyone I know with a pool.

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.

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!!

This product was a miracle. Frogs always died in the filter and this thing gave them a chance to survive. I had to make sure the water was high enough in the pool for them to reach it, but after that very few died. Thank you!

This is made of quality materials, however the ramp is too short- it doesn't reach the water level and therefore the frogs and other critters cannot reach it and I still find them waterlogged and floating as a result. I ended up getting a frog log that hangs off the side of the pool - it floats and has a ramp to the pool edge. No more dead floaters!

Works great wish we had this growing up.