New Pool questions - introduction

[dmarsh70]

Well if all goes good we should fill the pool today. My irrigation guy hooked up a little hook-up line so I can turn on the irrigation and fill it in about 4 hours. He said it's the same water so you may as well do it faster.

Anyways off this morning to buy a 2.8 litre bottle of Liquid Stabilizer so it gets right in there. Then i'll test CYA (24 hours?) and then add the granular in a sock. I used Poolcalculator and the 2.8 litres of Liquid Stabilizer should get me to about 18. Still a little low but there may already be some in there.

My LaMotte Color Q kit says it tests from "0" but a reading of "LOW" well not sure if its really zero or not. So I figured put in just the liquid and at least get it up there to a readable level.

My pool builder is out of town so he over the phone told me how to prime the pump and fill it. Said to add some shock to it and try to adjust the PH if I know how - told him I did. Also told him he can come right down here and take his inline chlorinator off as I really dont see me needing it (haha).

I do have a question though.

Skimmer question: under my skimmer basket I have two plugs. One has an "H" on it, the other is blank.

Do I need to have one or both of these open for the skimmer to bring water into the pump? Will it hurt anything if I keep them off and turn on the pump this afternoon? Probably a stupid question.

I would have asked him yesterday but he lost service when driving.

I also have a "well drain pump" under my pool so my main drains have holes in the bottom (which obviously have to be plugged before i fill) but they got filled up with aggragate so it wouldnt drain so I spent 2 hours digging as much out as I could to drain it - then decided I should look into the skimmer (it was NASTY) and after cleaning out all the sand and gunk I noticed the 2 plugs....

Any input on these??

Thanks again for all of your responses!