new pool owner, cheapest place for chemicals? and other questions.

[Cottonwood]

So I went through "Pool School" and I've been told i need algeacide, clearifier, muriatic acid, the chlorine tabs and of course jugs of chlorine. 

 

The cheapest I've found for chlorine tabs is Sams... 40 lbs for $82 and we'll be buying the jugs of chlorine from Pinch a Penny.

 

What about the other stuff?  Is Amazon or some other place cheaper?

 

And, I've been putting in the chlorine as scheduled and I have been keeping up with my tablets.  But I ran out of the algaecide the pool school guy left me.  So I have a blue pool with gray looking algea in parts on the bottom.  My brother says I need to brush the pool and then put in a clearifier (to clump up the algae so it will scoot into the filter?) then once I do that, I keep up w/ my chlorine and algeacide on time, scoop out debris and it'll stay nice looking.  Does that sound right?  I do plan to go back to pinch a penny to ask questions but I have 2 teens in various parts of Alg 1, Shakespeare and British Poetry so that will be a while ...it took me 2 hours to piece together this post. ha!

[zoobie]

I would recommend reading up on troublefreepool.com forums. We have a SWG, but I use bleach when it's too cold to run it. And I buy a bucket of chlorine tabs to put in the floater for maintenance or when we go on vacation when the pool is closed. You shouldn't need algaecide or whatever a clearifier is. If you have algae, you need to shock it (bleach) and clean it. When is the last time you cleaned your filter? A dirty filter won't clean the pool. How long are you running the filter? Are you running it during the sunny parts of the day? Do you have a pool vacuum? All semi-rhetorical questions...but seriously, read troublefreepool's forums. I think most of the chemicals pool businesses sell are scammy. And save up for a SWG. So much easier!

[Cottonwood]

I would recommend reading up on troublefreepool.com forums. We have a SWG, but I use bleach when it's too cold to run it. And I buy a bucket of chlorine tabs to put in the floater for maintenance or when we go on vacation when the pool is closed. You shouldn't need algaecide or whatever a clearifier is. If you have algae, you need to shock it (bleach) and clean it. When is the last time you cleaned your filter? A dirty filter won't clean the pool. How long are you running the filter? Are you running it during the sunny parts of the day? Do you have a pool vacuum? All semi-rhetorical questions...but seriously, read troublefreepool's forums. I think most of the chemicals pool businesses sell are scammy. And save up for a SWG. So much easier!

 

What is a SWG?

 

The filter was cleaned before we bought the house.  We run it for 6 hours from 9-3 right now.  We are shopping for a pool vacuum this week.

 

I'll look up that forum, thanks.

 

Yeah, I know I waited too long to put more chlorine in.  It's been so warm lately and I didn't stay on top of it.  

 

I shocked the pool today.  But I haven't had time to scrub it.  Once I do, will the algae just filter out on it's own?

[zoobie]

Salt Water Generator

 

Re: algae, once it's dead, yes, but you need to scrub the sides and everywhere to get it to detach. That forum has advice for different types of algae. It might just be dirt though, especially with no vacuum.

[Beebug123]

If you stay on top of the chlorine and shock it if you have a big party then you generally won't need the other stuff. We get some runoff into our pool so we do sometimes need to use other chemicals but that is rare. Be sure to check the pressure on the pool filter regularly so that you can see when it is getting too high and backflush the filter. Def get a vacuum. We just bought a new one this past weekend and the difference between it and the old one is huge. In the summer we were testing the water twice a week. Right now we've been ok with once a week. Hubby bought the tablets on Amazon and the liquid chlorine we buy from a small independent pool supply company that charges a core charge for the jugs and then every time you come in you exchange them for full ones and it is a lesser rate.