looking for Help with intex ultra frame pool 12 x 36 (frist time pool owner)

I'm running out of time -- it's 11 pm and I was up till 2AM last night, so I'm going to post some bits from our new sticky that may help. I removed the ones that don't apply.

Ben

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+ When we say "Walmart", we don't necessarily mean Walmart. You can find most of these products elsewhere. But, WalMart is a known quantity, and other stores are not so much. For example, other stores have been selling store brand bleach at concentrations other than 6%, mostly lower. And, the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit -- an excellent starter kit -- is (AFAIK) available ONLY at Walmart, and not all of those.

+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

+ If you have a freshly filled vinyl pool, you can generally get by for awhile without the K2006, as long as you have an OTO kit (not: 'guess-strips'!!). However, there are three cases where you need a K2006 ASAP:
You have a concrete pool, with scaling OR corrosion.

You have a problem with metals or staining.

You have a SWCG (Salt water chlorine generator) and possible scale build up.

In most cases, until you have a K-2006, all we can do is help you keep it from getting worse.

+ Pool stores often tell you MUST do this or that, right away. But, with few exceptions, there are only 3 chemical "MUST-FIX-NOW!" situations:
Low chlorine, and

pH above 8.0 or below 7.0

Pool freshly filled with metal containing well water

Otherwise, ignore their "you must do X, or your pool will become a nuclear hazard site!" type warnings.

+ Pool stores, test kits, pool books, online pool guides, iPad apps, The PoolCalculator, and even Taylor's K-2006 instruction booklet ALL have 'recommended' pool chemical levels. Some of these recommendations are usually wrong; some are mostly wrong; a few are ALWAYS wrong. If you do not have one of the "MUST-FIX-NOW" conditions, do NOT follow recommendations to 'fix it', until you've talked to us. If you do, you will almost always waste money, and frequently, you will make the problems harder to fix!

+ There are 3 critical pool chemical levels: chlorine, pH, and stabilizer. If you don't know your stabilizer level, we won't be able to help much till you do. Read the Best Guess page ( poolsolutions.com/gd/best-guess-swimming-pool-chlorine-chart.html ) for more information.

+ Buy some plain 6% household bleach, about 10 gallons per 10,000 gallons in your pool. You can switch to other products, later. But bleach will work, in almost any sort of pool mess, without complicating side-effects.

+ If you need stabilizer, and have access to a Sams Club, buy their 24lb pack of 1# bags of 100% dichlor shock. Each bag will add about 7 ppm of chlorine, and about 6 ppm of stabilizer, per 10K gallons of water. Otherwise, order dichlor from Amazon:
Kem-Tek Dichlor 22 lbs
We do NOT recommend buying dichlor locally, otherwise, at least until you are an EXPERT reader of chemical labels. The chlorinating pool chemicals sold at Walmart, Kmart, Costco, and most other local stores are diluted blends, sometimes with copper and other products with bad side-effects.

+ Do NOT add pool store goop -- phosphate removers, clarifiers, flocculents, metal 'removers' & sequestrants, and especially, algaecides -- without instruction from us, or at least, a VERY specific reason for doing so. All of those products have side effects that you probably don't understand yet. Most are sold to pool owners who do NOT need them. Many will make things worse if over-used. Some (algaecides, phosphate removers) usually make things worse if used at all. Rarely, you may actually NEED one of those products.

+ It's much easier to answer your questions, when we have the details about your pool in one place. We often 'waste' the first few posts back and forth collecting information. So, please complete our new Pool Chart form -- it takes about 30 seconds, but will save much more than that.
Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

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