How much maintenance does a natural pool need?

Less than you’d think! Without harsh chemicals or constant testing and balancing, maintenance becomes more seasonal than weekly. We design for balance, not babysitting.

A conventional pool asks for a small amount of attention very often: testing, dosing, adjusting, correcting. A natural pool asks for a different rhythm — less frequent, more seasonal, and closer to gardening than chemistry.

Weekly, in practice, means skimming leaves and emptying baskets. In Bali, where things grow fast and drop constantly, this is the one habit that matters most. Restricted flow is the root cause of nearly every problem a natural pool can have.

Monthly, it is worth walking the planted zone: thinning anything growing too enthusiastically, pulling the occasional weed, checking the pump is running as it should.

Seasonally, the planting gets cut back and divided, and the gravel bed is checked. The wet and dry seasons behave differently — heavy rain dilutes and flushes the system, while the dry season concentrates it — and a pool designed for Bali accounts for both from the start.

Testing still happens — just not the chemical kind. We check water quality periodically, including the bacterial and nutrient levels that actually matter for safe swimming, rather than testing and correcting pH and chlorine every few days. It is monitoring rather than dosing.

And if something does drift — a pump left off for a week, a heavy storm, a maintenance schedule that slipped during a busy month — it is fixable. Increasing circulation, thinning or adding planting, clearing the gravel bed, a partial water change, or a short run of more frequent servicing will usually bring an imbalance back under control. A natural pool is resilient. It just needs the cause addressed rather than masked.

What disappears entirely is the chemical routine. No chlorine to buy or store, no pH testing, no acid, no stabiliser, no shocking after a party, and no draining and refilling because the water has become unmanageable.

The first season is the most hands-on, while the biology establishes and the planting fills in. After that it settles down considerably.

If you would rather not do any of it, we offer natural pool maintenance packages from IDR 1,000,000 per month so your pool stays swimmable and beautiful year-round without you lifting a finger. Plenty of owners do the weekly skim themselves and leave the seasonal work to us.