Quote Originally Posted by MunkeyTX View Post
so my daughter will stop crying at not being able to swim, but if it's not right I won't let her in until it is)!
As long as your water is clear and you can maintain a chlorine level in your pool she can safely swim in it - the problem is that without adequate stabilizer in the water you will have to keep adding a LOT of bleach to keep that chlorine level up because it will burn off in the sun, often very quickly.

There is no harm in not using dichlor if you add CYA to your pool another way so that you protect your chlorine. Unless you have to drain water from your pool you probably won't have to add more during the season. Some walmarts carry the HTH Stabilizer and Conditioner, you'll know it's the right stuff if you find it because it has a purple cap and lists the contents as 96% Cyanuric Acid. In a 2700 gallon pool you will use most of a 15oz container (you could safely use all of it).

Your pH is fine in a vinyl pool as long as it's between 7 and 8. Higher or lower than that may be very irritating to the skin. You can use Muriatic Acid to lower the pH (adding the CYA will initially lower the pH too), but if the TA of your water is high you can just expect it to keep creeping back up over time unless you manage to get the TA down.