New AG pool owner with questions

First off, let me say this forum is a great resource.

We are getting our pool setup next week and the family is pretty excited. We've had those small 10' soft side pools with the blowup rings on top before and just bought the chemicals and all from wal-mart. I have a little smidge, not much, experience with pools. Since the new pool is a lot bigger and 'permanent' I have a few questions about setup.

Here is the pool info: 18' AG round pool ~7,200 gallons. We are on city water.

1. If I'm starting out, should I go the BBB route? What would be the disadvantage, if any, going this route?
2. Where do you buy baking soda and all in bulk; Costco, Walmart? (can't say I've ever seen it in any size but the little boxes) :)
3. Can the kids swim in it after filling or do I need to chlorinate and get things setup first?

I'm sure there will be more, but that's about all I can think of now.


Eric

Hello, iBrew, and welcome to the forum!!

Congratulations on the pool, I'm sure you'll love it. We advocate the BBB method almost solely around here. Your alternatives are Baquacil, which you'll find to be very expensive,( not to mention that it will not kill viruses in the water, so there's no way I would use that with kids swimming in the pool), or SWCG, which is still chlorine but I don't think is available for the soft side pools. So...chlorine is your best bet, and will be the easiest and cheapest way to keep your water clean. You're going to need to get a drop-based test kit. We recommend the K-2006, which can be found in the Amazon link in my signature, but you also can get by for now with the 6-way drop kit that you can get for around $20 at WalMart. You're going to need a few gallons of plain, unscented bleach, and some CYA (also called "stabilizer", "conditioner" or "balancer", but look at the ingredient label for cyanuric or isocyanuric acid). All of these things can be bought at WalMart. I get my CYA in the section of spa supplies. If you'll go ahead and get the test kit and run a set of tests on your fill water (don't do the CYA test, though, there's only enough reagents for about 3 tests and your fill water won't have any) and post them here, we can tell you what else you're going to need to get...but the rest of it can also come from WalMart, Sam's, or whatever other grocery store you use.

The pool will need to be chlorinated and at least pH balanced, before the kids can get in it, but it only takes a few minutes to accomplish that.

Thanks for the info! The pool is a 54" steel-sided pool. I'm told the pool comes with a test kit, but I'm certain it isn't a good one. I'll get the K-2006 as soon as I can, but in the meantime the wallyworld kit will do. I'll test the water coming out of the hose by tomorrow and post the results here.

Eric

Yeah, using an SWCG with a steel sided pool is possible, but voids the warranty due to corrosion concerns

Ok, so I went to Walmart and bought the only test kit they had... It's a cheap'o 3-way, but it will have to work until the good one gets in. My pool is going to be installed tomorrow so, I filled up a glass with water from the hose I'll be using. Here were the results from that test kit:
CL - 1.5
BR - less than 1.3
Ph - 7.6

Any tips on getting this thing up to speed? I've got the baking soda and I'll get a few gallons of bleach (6%, right?). When I add the bleach and stabilizer, will that 'shock' the pool?

"Shocking" usually just means "getting the chlorine to a kinda high level".

Your fill water looks like it may be easy -- as long as the inside of your toilet tank is not DARK brown / rust color, you should be OK.

If you want to swim ASAP, do this.

#1 - hang the stabilizer in a sock in front of the return. It's slow to dissolve, and you'll lose it if you have to clean the filter before it's completely gone.
#2 - go to a pool store if you have to , but get some polyquat (see www.poolsolutions.com/gd/polyquat.html) and add it AS SOON as you begin filling. It's safe to swim in, at any concentration, but will prevent algae and contribute to sanitizing the water.
#3 - start the pump as soon as you can, and put the sock in place.
#4 - add 1/2 gallon of bleach to the pool the first evening it's full.
#5 - unless something funky happens with the water -- possible if there's something weird in the water -- start swimming the next morning.