New Member, yucky pool

[PoolDoc]

Sorry, but the BBB method won't keep out leaves. I'm curious though: what brand of pool is it that has lasted 15 years?

Anyhow, A 15' x 4' round pool should hold about 4,900 gallons. I think if your pool is well and truly slimed, it might be cheaper to dump and refill, than to clean up the mess.

If you water rates are high enough so that's not true, the place to start is by removing all the leaves. You don't really want to start adding chemicals till all the big gunk is gone. On a small pool like that, I would just use a pool pole and a leaf net, like this:

Decent consumer model:
Kem-Tek 555-6 Aluminum Framed Leaf Rake Pool and Spa Accessories
Commercial grade model
Purity Pool Ultra-Lite 18-Inch Lightweight Professional Leaf Rake, Tuff Duty Model

Once you've got the leaves out, you'll need a testkit and some bleach. See the test kit info page - but look around at your local Walmarts: the HTH 6-way test kit (NOT: strips) is a great deal, where available.

You can get bleach -- PLAIN 6% bleach -- at Walmart, too.