Kiddie pool questions

So glad to find this site!

There is no information anywhere else about kiddie pools and I hate to waste so much water dumping every day.

I have a 350 gallon vinyl sided kiddie pool.

I followed the start up with bleach and borax.

Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention when I got my chlorine granules at the pool place and they sold meTrichloro-S Triazinetrione instead of the recommended Sodium dichlor stuff.

They also recommeded a floating dispenser which I also purchased.

Will this system work also for a kiddie pool? I assume once you start up you put it in and check the chlorine levels and adjust the thing up or down based upon the results.

I would also like to use a filter system so I don't have to drain weekly.

Any system people would recommend that is cost effective and appropriate for a small pool of this size?

Thanks a bunch,

Caroline
Mother of a two year old.:)

I may be out of line as I just joined yesterday myself, so thus a newbie too, and considered myself having a kiddie pool too with 2200 gallons but 350 is really a kiddie pool :)

So I'm not that qualified yet, but just in the replies I have already received and the ton of reading I have done, I would think it's safe to say that if you have not opened the floating dispenser I would return it. You don't need that even for a small 2200 gallon like mine.

Any chemicals you haven't opened I would return as well. For such a small size I don't think you're going to have a big issue that the three B's won't take care of. If you haven't read them yet, the three B's are Bleach, Borax and Baking soda.

You'll need a test kit too. Walmart sells a good test for $15 or might be able to get away with test strips for such a small pool. The pros around here will correct me if I'm wrong on that one

Did you just buy the pool? The cost of even small filters will cost about as much as the pool itself. I got a 2200 gallon at Toys R Us 3 weeks ago for $80 and it game with a filter that connects to the side of the pool. With pool season over is some parts of the US, check prices as you might can buy a bigger pool with a filter than buying a filter alone. So you may have to resort to dumping the water every few days. It cost me about $50 to fill 2200 gallons. That's less than 2 cents a gallon.

So my guess it will cost about $6 or so to fill your pool. Compare how much that would cost to how much a filter alone would cost and how much longer you'll be able to use it this year.

Our first "Real" pool was an 8' SnapSet with sort of rigid plastic sides, just around 500 gallons, if I recall. We bought a small sand filter for about $60 at Wally-World and poked a hole through the side of the pool for the suction side. The return hose just hung over the top of the pool.
This was about 6-7 years ago, before the Intex or donut type pools had really hit it big. I don't think you can get the sand filter anymore, but you probably get one of the intex filters and do the same thing.

You do need to get some stabilizer into your water to slow the breakdown of your chlorine. You can use the tri-chlor in the floater until your stabilizer (cya) level gets in range (usually 30-50) and then just use the BBB method.

For what is left of this season, I would probably just dose with a bit of bleach for a few days, and then dump the pool weekly or so. Then I would regroup over the winter and decide how much you want to invest in an inexpensive pool.