Wow, surprised to see this post back up here after all this time! I'll admit, there are better ways to remove the bars than what I did, it's what I had to work with at 2-3 a.m. when I couldn't sleep one night. I just said, 'Hey, while I'm up, let me go pull those bars out!' They probably don't even need to be removed, but when you struggle with metals in your source water, you tend to want to keep any of them as far from your pool as possible!
I'm glad it seems that Intex isn't putting copper in their SWG's anymore!