I put in a 28’ round, above ground pool last summer. Being Pool Ignorant I thought my pool dealer was doing me a big favor by throwing in a Softswim Water Care package to get me up and running. From all I’ve read, I guess the Big Favor was for him. So now I’m contemplating opening my pool in the next few weeks and I am ready to take charge of my pool, instead of running to the dealer with water samples and dropping a wad of $$ each time. So H E L P!!!!

Is the conversion from Softswim to Chlorine the same as from Baquacil to Chlorine??

First off since I winterized my pool, the water is down below the pump return. So my first question is:
1) Should I refill the pool before beginning the conversion from Softswim to chlorine? Just seems like I am contaminating a lot of clean water by adding it before the conversion.
I know I have seen somewhere, someone advertising/selling some product used to convert from softswim to chlorine. From the posts on this site it sounds like I only need bleach. Am I to assume (Sorry to use that word) we are talking about common household chlorine bleach that I use to wash my undies? Can anyone say what the % this bleach is, as far as what the Chlorine calc pgm also found on this site, uses?

2) Do I need this special conversion chemical and does it make the conversion any better/faster/easier that the bleach method or is it just another $$ pit?

The filter I have uses pleated cartridges. It seems I read somewhere, not to use a cartridge that had been exposed to Softswim with any other sanitizer. I don’t recall why, but I’m guessing that those Softswim Creatures are hiding in the filter and will keep contaminating the pool (or something like that). So as I begin the conversion and create 19000 gallons of pea soup, should I start using my cartridge from last year and at some point switch to a new cartridge? When should that switch occur? Is the pea soup full of a lot of CRUD that will clog up the filter so will I need to clean the cartridge frequently?
Did I just answer question one? I guess I need a full pool in order to run the pump/filter?

How long does this process take??

I’m sure I will have more questions.

Thanx in Advance