hatetoskim!

Hmm. I thought the 18s came with the 1500 or 200gph pumps. Is the filter a tower shape or does the pump sit next to the filter? Assuming you have the large strainers (screw on) and your pump has enough power ,you could just go with this adapter and any 1 1/2" vacuum house setup. Large Strainer Adapter

Sounds like another case of cal-hypo in one of these small pools. itabb - you mentioned that the dichlor is not a good solution. What are the down sides of it? I have been using it about a month now, but let me know what I should be keeping an eye out for. It also has a ph of 7.0 so I do not need to do much adjusting.

Clearwater, I just went through the same thing last month in a 15x42 Intex. Used cal-hypo based product and ended up with milk. I really did not want to drain and refill the pool so we added a clarifier a couple of times and kept changing the filter every day or so until we got all the excess ca out. It took about week to get it back to clear. After shifting to a Dichlor chlorine and vacuuming once, the water is crystal clear. I noticed that you mentioned the garden hose vacuum. Do you have the Intex automatic skimmer? This was not included with our pool so we got the deluxe maintenance kit that also includes a real filter powered vacuum that hooks into the skimmer easily and includes a pre-filter ( that works very well, I was not expecting it to work so well and was not paying attention until I noticed that the outflow from the pump had stopped DOH!)). This was key for us to get the last of the ca precipitate out of the pool.

Does the tablet dissolve at the expected rate? It sounds like the shock does it's job to get but goes away pretty quickly (as it should) and then the floater is not releasing enough to get the pool up to the correct level. Dunno... just a thought. By the correct chlorine, I meant the correct for you and your pool/water's needs. I went through a tough couple of weeks after blindly selecting a cal hypo based granual to use as daily chlorinator. This is after battling with the tablets that would never dissolve no matter how many holes I drilled in the floater After a couple of weeks of using the cal hypo I had a pool full of milk. I finally realized that the calcium in the chlorine had driven the ca level through the roof. After switching to Dichlor and a ton filters later I again have clean water. I'm sure it's a good product when used properly, it just bit me in the butt through my lack of knowledge. Some of the other types also have a more desirable ph and some have a higher concentration of available chlorine making it more efficient/cheaper. After a few hours of reading up on it I had a much better understanding of what I was buying. In no way an expert, just not totally blind Waterbear, Good info on the over-stabilization. Does clarifier build up like that as well? I only use it once a week as part of the shock that I use with pretty good results so far. I just want to keep an eye out for anymore issues before they got as bad as the ca debacle I had.

What kind of chlorine are you using? Most of the tablets are trichlor, but check the container to see. The same question on the shock. Do you see it mentioned if it is stabilized or not? Is the tablet dissolving? I tried using the tablets with a floater, but I could not get the tablet to dissolve at all. I believe that most of the trichlor tablets are stabilized, but I could be wrong. Non stabilized chlorine has very low life span, especially in the heat/sun. I had the same problem when I first got our Intex 15x42, but once we moved to the correct stabilized chlorine it is pretty steady. We have to add once a day, but it holds OK.

As I am new here also I can only answer one of your questions. We picked up a 15x42 last month and have a good experience with it. I too made the mistake of thinking that close was good enough on level DOH!. But on to your question on the pump. I went up to a 1500gph (model 635) for a few reasons. Almost %50 increase in capacity. On/off switch (trivial, but much nicer than having to unplug/plug.) Plunger valves! (this was a HUGE improvement over those black plugs, checking the filter take no time now) The only downsides are you are still limited by the 1 1/4 fittings on the pool so you can't use the big strainers that came with the 1500 gph pump. Not a big deal, but I would have like to be able to go to the 1 1/2 fittings. The adapters are part#10722 and are <$2.00 I see that you already have the automatic skimmer. What a huge difference this made for us. Our pool did not come with it and my wife had been hand skimming. We liked that vacuum that came with the Intex Deluxe maint set so we order one at the same time we got the 635 pump. When I first installed it (before I turned it on) my wife was poking fun at it, that is until I turned it on and it started sucking all that junk that she spent a ton of time everyday on hand skimming was being sucked away. That alone was worth the money for the kit! The main reason we got the kit was the vacuum. This is a true filtered vacuum, not one of those water swirl/leave deals. Worked great and only took about 20 minutes to do a pretty nasty bottom. I have not ever used the automatics as my previous experience pool maintenance was as a kid in FL forced to do pool duty on a big inground for years. The automatic costs in those years made it a pipe dream for me But then again that was how many decades ago. It looks like the costs have come down a great deal, but I have not had a chance to look into them yet. On the floater. We had used a floater when we lived in another state without a problem. We just had to run the filter whenever the floater was in the pool. Since we have moved to TN we have not been able to get the Triclor tablets to dissolve. I even drill the floater to look like swiss cheese to get more flow, but nothing. I did not know about the different types of chlorine and blindly pciked up the only granular they I could find at the time. Turned out to be Calcium Hypochlorite. A couple of weeks later I had a pool full of milk. Took me a couple of days of research to figure out by trying to shock the murkiness out of the water we were through more and more calcium into the water making the cloudiness worse. Once we shifted to the Dichlor things got better. Well better after $25 in filters to finally get the slimy white goo out of the water. Morale of my long winded story, know what kind of chlorine you want to use. Someone with the need to added Ca might go with the Calcium Hypochlorite. But for most the Triclor might be best ( I just cant seem to get it to dissolve). Also the different types have different effects on ph levels. Oh well, that pretty much a brain dump of what we have learned in this last month of dealing with this over the first month with the pool. It has definitely been worth the time and money as the kids spend almost every waking moment in the thing. Enjoy your new pool!