Don't worry about T/A or hardness for now. Keep your pH in the 7.2-7.5 range and keep up your CL level.

Because you may have a metal issue, Jan doesn't want you to raise your CL too high. Otherwise, we'd be telling you to hammer the pool with chlorine.

Meanwhile, keep hosing down those filters! While I know Intex filters aren't too expensive if you change 'em every 2 weeks, but every day can be. Meantime, if you think one's ready to chuck, try soaking it in electric dishwasher detergent, like Electrasol. The people with large cartridge systems where the filters cost triple digits do that all the time. I'm not sure of the amount of detergent, but you can do a search on our forum to find it.

Meanwhile, if Chem_Geek pops in, he is a cart filter owner and can probably suggest how to get more life from your filters.