The only things I ever use in my pool are bleach and Borax. But, my pH is very stable so I seldom need Borax. I also add baking soda maybe once or twice a summer if my alk gets low and my pH starts bouncing around. The only other thing I ever use in my pool is some CYA which I add at the beginning of the summer.

The premise behind our methods here is that you have a way to test accurately and then only add the basics of what you need to use without a bunch of extra stuff that more often than not, can mess up your pool. Many pool store chemicals are blended mixes of a various assortment of things some of which are things you really don't want in your pools like copper! A lot of the cheap algaecides cause issues with foaming, so we also don't recommend them.

We know the ingredients of bleach and Borax and we know that there aren't other unwanted things in there. We also know those items are readily available and also cheaper than pool store products in most cases.

The key is having the ability to test accurately yourself which is why we push the Taylor K2006 kit as much as we do.

Do a lot of reading here on the forum and also on our sister website www.poolsolutions.com. Lots to learn there as well.