Hello all! My husband and I bought a home last September and are preparing to hopefully enjoy swimming in the pool that was existing in the home when we bought it. However, we have a few issues that are concerning us. We paid for a seminar from the installer when we bought the home, but it was not informative at all. We were only shown how to backwash the pool and turn on our deck jets bubblers and slide. We have so much to learn. I am familiarizing myself with the site and The threads have been very helpful so far. The previous owner told us he only spent $30 on chemicals last year. We kept the pool up and running over the winter, but the pool company told us not to worry about keeping the water balanced. When I went for the first water test and to get the chemicals we needed to get ready for swim season, I was shocked that my bill was almost $300. We needed nine bags of salt! Is that normal? That raised our salt level to 3200, but I just checked our aqua pod and less than a month later it has dropped to 2800 - we are not heating the pool and have not begun swimming yet. It has been backwashed once since the salt level was at 3200. We do feel like we have to put water in the pool quite frequently and I was concerned that there may be a leak. I did conduct a bucket test and the levels had almost and unmeasurable difference. I'm just so surprised that it needed nine bags of salt in March even though it was balanced in September, and now even though it was within the normal range I may need to add another bag just three weeks later.
I also noticed about a month ago that the pool was getting dirty on the bottom very quickly after running the automatic cleaner. There seems to be dirt collecting on all of the liner seams throughout the pool even the day after running our Tigershark. After doing some reading, I was worried that it could actually be sand from our filter. I asked the pool shop owner about a possible broken lateral, and she was dismissive and said we would have a huge pile of sand directly below the return Jets if that was the case.
And just in case we didn't have enough to learn about, a pair of mallards nested in the landscaping in front of my home and the female has laid eggs! The local wildlife authority has instructed us that we are not allowed to disrupt them in any way and we should plan on sharing our pool with the ducklings for 4 to 6 weeks. ? I'm afraid we may be in over our heads with everything!
Thanks for any input!
I also noticed about a month ago that the pool was getting dirty on the bottom very quickly after running the automatic cleaner. There seems to be dirt collecting on all of the liner seams throughout the pool even the day after running our Tigershark. After doing some reading, I was worried that it could actually be sand from our filter. I asked the pool shop owner about a possible broken lateral, and she was dismissive and said we would have a huge pile of sand directly below the return Jets if that was the case.
And just in case we didn't have enough to learn about, a pair of mallards nested in the landscaping in front of my home and the female has laid eggs! The local wildlife authority has instructed us that we are not allowed to disrupt them in any way and we should plan on sharing our pool with the ducklings for 4 to 6 weeks. ? I'm afraid we may be in over our heads with everything!
Thanks for any input!
You have a lot going on there, but we can certainly help ... with the water anyways, not the ducks. 
Priority #1 - the testing. Do you have a TF-100 or Taylor K-2006? If not, that must be your first order of business. With that kit, post a full set of test results and we can help you from there to ensure your pool is balanced properly. 
