John,
I have experience with Salt, plain Chlorine and Baquacil. I like them all, and let me give you a quick tour.
Sticking with Baquacil? Read this:
First, if you experience white mold, just drop in 1 capful of Baquacil Flock into your filter. This allows the sand filter to get rid of very fine particles, including white mold.
Second, if you neglect your pool for an entire month, and you get worst case full green algae, I have a video of how I got it back to 100% clear blue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUqvK0ZWZVI
Pros: I like how "silky" the baquacil feels, and I like how the chemical "sticks around" even in bright sunlight. That allows me less hands-on maintenance time.
Cons: It seems to be more expensive. Like $60 / month in chemicals. Some kids don't like the "soapy" taste of the water.
Thinking of salt water pool?
First, a salt pool is essentially a chlorine pool. So many people don't realize this.
Second, the salt chlorine generators simply provide a constant stream of chlorine gas, which allows it to "keep up" with less worries and maintenance of chemical levels.
Pros: it keeps up with chlorine production. My family thought they were swimming in less chlorine (but honestly I think the levels were the same). The salt level feels good on your skin. You can use shock to catch back up, etc.
Cons: If you have a metal Intex pool frame, the salt can corrode your frame very quickly. It happened to me when I measured the salt wrong, kept adding more, and my frame quickly collapsed! Another con, the salt water generators do add a cost, and have to be cleaned out now and then. I got a little tired of the consumer grade ones from Intex, and the "Pro" ones are extremely expensive.
How about normal Chlorine?
First, everybody that thinks they are allergic to chlorine probably means the bad combined chlorine / used up type. Maintaining the right levels doesn't cause eyes to burn, etc.
Second, the number of products off the shelf are so easy to get and use. And if you follow some of the other threads where you add Borax at 35 ppm then I had the most sparkly water EVER.
Pros: cheap, easy to use and easy to recover from when you didn't keep up with it. cheap once again. so nice!
Most any "pool guy" can take care of this type of pool too. No specialists needed.
Cons: My wife thinking that it's bad for the kids (I don't agree). I find Chlorine to escape a bit quickly, even with CYA (cyuranic acid), or sometimes it's odd to deal with CYA building up too much. No big deal, I just found myself tinkering with the chemistry more often with the Chlorine approach when doing a small above ground pool.
In ALL of these systems, you still need to pay attention to pH and Alkalinity levels. ALL of these require you to vacuum or filter in some way. There is no such thing as a maintenance free pool.
Hope this helps. All these systems are doable - don't be afraid and take control of your water.
To make a long story short,I have a 24' ft pool which I installed late Sept last year, with baquacil. Opened 2 weeks ago following the baquacil plan, and I have green cloudy water at the bottom half of the pool. Water seemed pretty good until I started filtering it (sand was still new from Sept). I'm adding all kinds of baqua stuff,( oxidizer, cdx, sanitizer, calcium) and I like the idea of the BBB and saltwater, but with the fresh introduction to the baquacil products I don't see it in my finacial future to convert this year to either one. So, I want to make this work, how do I get rid of the algae (as I'm assuming it is) with the system I've got. I hate to be stubborn, but I really want to understand what is happening, why and how it reacts to the chemicals that are introduced. I'm hoping that a systematic approach to this can lead to a lean cure.
Thanks,
John
