I just bought an intex above ground pool, it is 16' by 48'' and i was wondering what chemicals do i need to...

Question

maintain the pool. And how many chemicals do i need? =] thankss

Answer 1

The first thing you should do is shock your pool (you can buy chlorine shock at the store, it's basically just a high dosage of chlorine to kill bacteria and clean the water).  Next, you should add stabilizer.  Stabilizer will give your chlorine something to bond to so it doesn't evaporate so quickly.

This will take a few days to dissolve.  Do you have floating chemical dispenser or an automatic chlorinator?  Either way, fill it with chlorine pucks or tablets (they work the same way, they're just different sizes depending on how big your dispenser is).

Then you need to keep testing your water.  If your chlorine levels get too high, then add less pucks or turn down the dispenser/chlorinator.  If the chlorine gets too low, add more pucks or turn the unit up.  If your pH gets too high or too low, you need to add some pH decreaser or pH increaser.  If your alkalinity gets too low, add total alkalinity increaser.  If your alkalinity gets a little high, use pH decreaser - if it gets extremely high, use muriatic acid.

It's hard for us to tell you how many chemicals you need.  Everyone needs a different amount, depending on their water chemistry, amount of water their pool holds, how well they care for their pool, etc.  Your basics are shock (do once a week and wait 24 hours before swimming), stabilizer, and chlorine pucks or tablets.  You should also buy some test strips to test your water quickly at home, to see how your chlorine/pH/alkalinity levels are doing.  Then you should buy and add more chemicals according to what your readings are telling you.

If this gets too confusing, you can always bring a sample of your water in an old water bottle to your local pool store.  Most do free water testing, and they can tell you exactly which chemicals and how much of those chemicals you should add.