HUD "Protected" Pool - Lots of Problems, please Help!

[PoolDoc]

Draining a vinyl liner pool like his often destroys the liner.

[Rocket Man]

We now have some modicum of success. I had to go out of town for the weekend and knowing I would not be there to backwash the filter I shut it down and did not add any more CL. When I returned today (60 hours later) the pool had about six feet of visibility (and blurry to the bottom of the deep end about 10') and a massive die off of algae in the bottom. This made me note a number of wrinkles in the liner in the shallow end. Most of the wrinkles extended from the corners making me think that the pool had likely been drained fairly low. In the good news arena the pool volume dropped almost zero while we were gone and since there was no rain that means there is most likely no leaks.

CL registered zero and the PH was still around 7.2. We vacuumed most of the algae to waste, pulled several of the fencing staples out of the bottom of the pool and dumped some more CL in the pool.

As we got into the deep end this stirred up a lot of debris and repeatedly clogged the filter (pre-filter really) clouding up the water quite a lot.

I am thinking that this means we are getting close at last. Some questions remain:

- What is the best way to add salt? Is there any kind switchover procedures?

- Is it possible to fix the wrinkles? If not is this a problem? I don't care so much about the aesthetics. I won't buy a new liner if it is not otherwise a problem.

- The plastic stairs that meet the pool deck have no grout or caulk around them. It seems to me they should to keep water from getting in behind the steps. Should I caulk/ grout it?

- Should I add stabilizer? There is none in the pool right now.