Shock question for a small pool.

[AnnaK]

I recently bought a 12' x 39" Intex pool for my kiddos (The box says it holds 2,670 gallons).

A few more questions:

Should we keep the filter going all the time?
Is there another way to get around buying a vacuum for the pool?

One more for the road:
The water in the pool seems to have a film over the top, is that from sunscreen?

Congratulations on your new pool and welcome to the forum!

Have you found this Pool Calculator yet? It says you need 28 oz of household bleach to raise your free chlorine (that's the stuff that does the sanitizing work) from 0 to 5 ppm. Not knowing what all you've already put in the water and what the "numbers" are makes it a little difficult to give specific advice but for a small pool like yours I'd go with 2 cups of bleach a day and see how that works. In the absence of any stabilizer or conditioner that would keep your free chlorine around 3 ppm, a good sanitizing level.

I don't know anything about the pumps on these pools but I probably would not run it 24/7. I'd run it during the day when the kids are likely in it to keep the water circulating and turn it off at night. Add your bleach at night about an hour before you turn off the pump.

The film on the water is probably lotion and sunscreen and bug spray.

As to vacuuming . . . you might be able to get away with not buying a vacuum, if one didn't come with the pool. Get a soft bristle brush made for vinyl pools at WalMart and brush the bottom of the pool. As long as the pump is running it will work on filtering stuff that's suspended in the water. You can also pick up a skimmer or a leaf net to manually scoop up larger debris such as leaves or grass cuttings.

Way back in the day we used to have a horse trough set up in the driveway, about the same size as your pool. If the water got simply too grungy I would just drain it, scrub the thing, and refill it.

Have fun!