The System said:
There's going to be a ton of different opinions. And yes TFP can be a great resource as mentioned. However, I have almost identical setup, and have had it for years. Keep your chlorinator filled (I check every five days), you cast the shock in as needed (usually once/week)in the deeper end of your pool and let it circulate.
I try to keep my Cl between 3-5. And Ph between 7.4-7.6, Alkalinity 80-100. I run my pump in the day from 9:30a-7:00p, and my waterfalls at night.
Get a good test kit (that checks alkalinity, hardness, CYA, etc) and also some strips for spot testing. And buy a good robot cleaner.
I live in SETX and we get so much rain, plus evaporation/refill that I've never had an issue with CYA levels getting too high. Some people in other areas mention their CYA gets too high when using pucks.
Enjoy it! It's been absolutely worth it.
We get most everything from Pinch a Penny because of convenience. We get our pool test strips from there, AquaChek 7 from Hach which contains 100 test strips. It will provide a general range for your pool water of total hardness (ppm), total chlorine (ppm), free chlorine (ppm), pH, total alkalinity (ppm) and cyanuric acid (ppm).
In order to get more accurate results at home, I purchased a test kit online. The one I bought is made by Taylor K-2005 Complete test kit. It can be purchased online from Amazon for about $75.00.
My wife also takes a water sample to Pinch a Penny, which will perform an accurate analysis for free and provide a printout of the results and if the pool water is out of balance, they will put on the printout how much of what you need to add in and how to add it. When you first start taking a water sample to Pinch a Penny for analysis, they will ask you specific questions about your pool (i.e. pool size (gallons), whether it's a chlorine or salt water pool, material of construction (gunite, etc.), etc.).
We also purchase the liquid chlorine (shock) from Pinch a Penny along with the chlorine tablets (Suncoast complete multi-purpose 3" chlorine tablets). The Suncoast tablets may be a little more expensive but each tablet is individually wrapped in plastic. I've purchased cheaper tablets before that came in a bucket like the Suncoast tablets but they typically don't individually wrap them. I keep my bucket of tablets outside on the concrete slab where the pool pump is located. The tablets are stored in a tightly sealed plastic container. When I sat the cheaper bucket of tablets outside for a little while, when I'd open the bucket in order to get some tablets out, they were all stuck together, whereas this doesn't happen to the individually wrapped ones. Maybe if I kept the bucket in the a dry, cool, indoor location, they wouldn't stick together but for me, the most convenient place to store them is by the pool pump where the chlorinator is located. Note that we don't have any kids at home (they are all grown adults now) but we do have dogs and they have never once bothered the bucket.
We have 4 pool filter cartridges and I purchase these online. Pinch a Penny's were quite a bit more expensive when I first priced them out when our pool was new (about 7 years ago). I can buy a 4 pack of Jandy CV340 (340 square feet of filtration area) pool filter cartridge replacements online for about $115.00 (these are the brand/type of filters the pool company that built our pool originally used when the pool was new). They have 4 plastic bands on each filter for structural support/integrity. A set of 4 pool filter cartridge replacements that only have 2 bands on them can be purchased online for around ~$100.00.
Pinch a Penny recommends liquid shock whereas I believe Leslie's promotes/recommends granular shock. Like another poster stated, a manager from Pinch a Penny told me to run the pool pump daily for 1 hour for every 10 Deg. F the outside temperature is (i.e. 100 Deg. F outside temp equals 10 hours per day running the pool pump).
