You need as much chemicals as it takes to keep your pool chemistry at the recommended levels. As far as shock is concerned, I usually use granular shock every few weeks during heavy use. And yes, you need to run the pump everyday for at least 4 hours.

Cindy,

Spongeop is correct...it takes as much as it takes. You want your pool water to turn over (be run through the filter) at least once every 24 hours, sometimes more in the summer.

You can definitely save some money using non-pool-store "chemicals" that are chemically equivalent to what the pool store sells you; sometimes they're even better because they don't have a lot of extra chemicals you don't need.

I've linked PoolForum.com below as a great site with a wealth of info to help you out. Unfortunately, they're not accepting new registrations, so you can't post questions there. However, a number of knowledgeable posters on PoolForum also post on TroubleFreePool.com where they DO accept new registrations.

All I know about pools came from this site and Pool Forum (TFP wasn't in existence when I started). Their advice really works!! Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: PoolForum site

Thank you both for the information. I know in gardening that fertilziers have a certain rate to use and almost all master gardeneres will tell you to use half the rate of what they call for. So I was thinking the same may be true for pools as well. Cindy