old sock, rubber band, tie off to ladder. Then come by every couple hours and squish the sock and let the softened powder disperse. Use the pool calculator to determine how much stabilizer will add 20ppm of CYA to your pool. That should get you up to about 30ppm which is low for super hot climates but also a good starting point until you can get an accurate reading for CYA. Then, assume you have 30ppm CYA in the pool and set the pool calculator for that number. Remember, adding CYA will change your target, minimum and shock levels to min 2, target 6, shock 13 whereas without CYA you're looking at 1, 3, and 10.
Run your pump full time. It won't burn up, it has water in it. With these small pools and inefficient pumps, filtering is very important. I actually run two Intex/seasonal pool type pumps on mine. Full time. They are both 1000gph pumps. One sucks at the bottom of the pool, one is on the skimmer. Works for me till I decide to invest in a better pump/filter.