New very small pool and chemical advice

[SJ2571]

Hi all, I'm new here and new to pools so go easy on me.

I bought a small Bestway (Intex?) above-ground pool that is 4.14 m long and 2.16 m wide. The surface that it's on is not 100% level, but it's pretty darn close, probably 95%. When filled to half capacity, the "lower" water surface level is only about 5 cm lower than the "higher" end. I know it should be 100% level but I have neither the tools, skills or money to make it (or get it made) level. A picture tells a thousand words, so here:



Now, as you can see it's about 40 cm high of water at the moment (see the shadow on the wall on the left of the pic). If I fill it any higher, then due to the uneven ground it starts to put too much pressure on the long side at the top of the pic. No problem: I'm happy to keep it at the level seen in the pic because I have small kids who couldn't stand in it if it were higher anyway. This way, they can sit on the pool floor and the water just goes to their necks.

But, the issue comes into play about chlorine and chemicals. Is this amount of water too small to use them? I used an online pool calculator which says it's about 2700 litres of water (another calc said 3000 litres), so where does a total newbie go from here? How do I find out what to add for a first-time pool setup of this size, and to maintain it?

Thanks for any advice.

[Guest]

if you gonna be adding chemicals you need a pump and filter too.

chlorine and ph control will probably suffice

[SJ2571]

Hi, yes, the pool does have a pump and filter. I also got some advice from a pool shop and the guy there said that liquid chlorine and alkaline would be all I need. So, I bought some liquid chlorine but they didn't have anything labelled alkaline, so what else is that known by? And is that the same thing as PH control that you mentioned? Lastly, how long should the filter run, for a pool this size (3000 litres)? I'm guessing about 4 hours per day?

[SJ2571]

Anyone?

[chem geek]

Since this is not a plaster pool, you don't need to worry about the Calcium Hardness (CH). By alkaline, I believe they are talking about Total Alkalinity (TA), but oftentimes the fill water already has TA. You can measure it with a test kit and increase it to 80 ppm if it's lower than that by adding Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (or Alkalinity Up, if you want to pay more). You can use The Pool Calculator for calculating dosages.

As for using liquid chlorine (chlorinating liquid or bleach), you should have some Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in the water first to protect the chlorine from breakdown from sunlight and to moderate chlorine's strength. The easiest way to add it in such a small pool is to initially use Dichlor as your source of chlorine (this is aka chlorinating granules, but check the ingredients for something like "sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione". For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Dichlor, it will also add 9 ppm to CYA. So use Dichlor as your source of chlorine until you have cumulatively added around 33 ppm FC over time. That will get you to around 30 ppm CYA which should be sufficient. After that, you would switch to using chlorinating or bleach (6% Clorox Regular). You would always try to maintain the FC level at around 3 ppm and never let it get below 2 ppm in order to prevent algae growth, so you might add chlorine to let it get to 4 ppm and then add more when it drops below 3 ppm, etc.

You want the filter to do at least one turnover per day. If you use a smaller pump on a low speed, it might be longer than 4 hours.

You can learn more about maintaining a pool by looking at the Pool School.

[SJ2571]

Thanks for all the info, and the link to pool school.

[MARKAFN]

dont worry about the pool being 100 percent level ..they say they should be but i had one that was not and it never fell over..as long as its not realy wonky you will be fine , fill it up to the top ..run the pump and add clorine..you can get a clorine feeder it floats and you just add tablets there ok..you need the chemicals in it if not as soon as the sun comes out it will be green and you neeed to run the filter..worth adding a algicide to .