Hi all! sorry I've not been back to post, August was about getting in last minute vacations & getting ready for back to school for kids and me. With that and lower daytime temperatures, we didn't use the pool as much as I would have liked, but I have definitely learned what I'll need to do for next year (we put the pool to bed over labor day.)

If I had not been so graciouly instructed by all of you on how to keep the water balanced, I think I would have just shot the pool and put it out of my misery (I saw this done on youtube Instead, I was able to keep the water clear (most of the time) I had a little trouble with vacations..In the future, I will put a timer on the pump and never, ever use chlorine pucks..as a last resort I added ONE to a floater for a 4 day trip and it threw the water completely out of balance, increased the PH and the cya went thru the roof. I got rid of the floater and added a higher level of bleach, hoping that would tied it over until I got home again. We were only home for 2 days before leaving again for 8 days, the blue donut rebelled.

First, it didn't help while we were gone the wind shredded the original cover, dumping in lots of dirt...we quickly bought a generic cover which was too big to fit snug. According to Bro-in-Law, the wind turned that one into a hot air balloon so to help, he tossed a hose on top..it sunk to the bottom along with the shredded cover... more dirt in the pool. Did I mention we get wind here? With dirt & bugs, no filtration and that darn puck...It was a mess when we got home. But, with all your advice I heard myself say, "self, be calm..just follow instructions and all will be fine." (hmmm...where'd I hear that?) I did, it was.

The smartest thing I did was to take BigDaves advice and buy a vaccum, one I could attach to the filter pump..what a huge difference in bringing the water back around without adding water. I vaccumed twice a day for two days and ran the pump continuously, with bleach it was crystal on day three and we were able to enjoy it again for the last few days of our summer. I was pleased to check the last filter and find it was staying WHITE! a far cry from the sticky brownish/black filters I had at the start.

So would I do it again?...yes, I'm actually looking forward to next year....as long as ya'll are here to help me. I might even be so BOLD as to attempt the ascorbic acid trick of cleaning up stains!

Thanks again! and see ya next summer!