Eventually you'll get good enough at the pool thing that you can look at your water, predict what it needs, test it and find out your predictions were correct

I *over* tested my pool when we first started it up after moving into the house (once a day, no joke, a drop-count chlorine test, pH test, and alkalinity test). Now I only really test it during startup, and maybe one/week thereafter (and the once/week tests are just with the mini-PS230 kit).

My experience in my area is that once the pH and alkalinity is set, it doesnt really go anywhere. After that its just a matter of adding chlorine to keep the level decent.

-Chris