Yeah, if you want to keep the water from turning green, you have to get chlorine in it before you put people in it. There's more to it then that, but I'm not going to try to do the whole "sanitation and oxidation' spiel right now.

Regarding well water, it may, or may not be better. If it's a well in limestone areas, it's every easy. If it's a well in iron shale or some some other metal containing strata . . . it's a mess.

If you do NOT have a softener *AND* your toilets are not stained brown from iron or manganese, we're probably OK. BUT, you still need to do the other stuff on the list.

It is much, MUCH easier to keep a pool, than it is to clean it up. That goes double on the small pools like yours, which almost always are coupled with undersized filters.

If you want to swim in it right now, if you can add polyquat to the list of things for your pool (see www.poolsolutions.com/gd/polyquat.html) that will allow you to 'keep' the pool in the period time between getting an adequate stabilizer level and now. If you buy polyquat, you'll need to go to a pool store -- the stuff is no longer sold at Walmart, etc. All those stores have been 'seduced over to the Dark Side", and sell only 'goop' for algaecides. Be sure you've written done the first few syllables of the chemical name and go ONLY by that, not by brand or product name.

The problem is, the very sunny weather most of the country is having strips chlorine from unstabilized water very, very quickly. And the hot weather means swimmers are adding lots of people goo in the form of sweat, body oils and lotion. It's an ideal recipe for a swamp, if you don't get your chems right, right away.