Add a few drops of soap to the water and stir well until it gets nice and soapy. Dip the sponge in your soapy water and begin scrubbing all the surfaces of the pool. Be sure not to forget all the nooks and crannies! Give the kiddie pool a good rinse to clear and residual soap.
Drain and refill the pool
If your kid's pool is pretty small, and draining and refilling it doesn't feel like a colossal waste of water, then the best way to keep the kiddie pool clean is to drain it when the water's dirty, scrub it down with a plain old kitchen brush and some mild dish soap, and refill it.
Before using the bleach or cleaning solution, you can scrub the pool down with soapy water to lift any grime or slimy residue on the pool surface. If the pool wasn't really dirty to begin with, you may be fine just cleaning it this way with soapy water.
It is very important to drain the kiddie pool completely after every use. Allow it to fully dry under the heat to get rid of any moisture left. For cleaning, you can use bleach or vinegar (diluted in water) to disinfect it.
Baking soda will raise the total alkalinity of the water. The alkalinity keeps the pH stable which then allows the bleach to remove more bacteria and contaminates. About a 1/2 of a teaspoon of baking soda will treat 26 gallons of water.
A rule of thumb is 1.5 lbs. of baking soda per 10,000 gallons of water will raise alkalinity by about 10 ppm. If your pool's pH tested below 7.2, add 3-4 pounds of baking soda. If you're new to adding pool chemicals, start by adding only one-half or three-fourths of the recommended amount.
Salt is often presented as a healthier alternative to adding chlorine to a kiddie pool, since saltwater is gentler on the skin. This is particularly true of Epsom salt, which has a very different chemical composition from regular salt – it is magnesium chloride rather than sodium chloride.
Many of us want to cool off in a backyard pool, but we also want to make sure there are no dangerous bacteria lurking in these pools that do not have any filtration system in place. You can use Clorox® Regular Bleach2 to treat the water in a child's wading pool.
In most cases, the walls and floor of your pool feel slimy and slippery due to a lack of pool maintenance. Water chemistry is important in order to maintain clear and bacteria-free water. Generally, slippery and slimy pool walls are an early indication of bacteria and algae growth.
If you don't have a drain plug in your kiddie pool, but you have a nearby hillside, you could use a garden hose to siphon most of the water out, to a point where you can flip it over to empty fully. An easier method would be to use one of our small submersible pumps.
For small inflatable pools that you don't want to empty and refill so often, you can add a small amount of bleach to the water to sanitize it. Add about a 1/4 tsp for every 10 gallons of water, or for medium sized inflatable pools, add 2 1/2 tsp for every 100 gallons.
It is important to know what exactly bleach is before you put it in your pool. Household bleach, Clorox and liquid chlorine can all be used to sanitize a pool. They are all types of chlorine. Household bleaches such as Clorox usually contain about 5-6% available chlorine, about half that of pool liquid chlorine.
If a kiddie pool's water isn't going to be changed regularly, disinfecting it makes sense, and bleach will work well in that regard. Add only enough bleach to a kiddie pool to maintain chlorine between 1 and 2 parts per million (PPM), and test to ensure proper levels.
Epsom salt travels through saltwater pool filters and chlorine generator cells, softening buildup and making cleaning easier. When cleaning, add between 35 and 45 lbs. of Epsom salt to the pool. Allow the salted water to circulate for several hours before attempting to clean the filter or chlorine generator cell.
People sometimes add relatively small quantities of epsom salt to the pool to help make future calcium deposits easier to clean off.
How To Clean Without Chemicals: For the pool, you see in the picture (this one here) I simply added one cup of distilled white vinegar to it each day. Then I would mix it around with my hand and that is it. The kids would hop in right after not having to worry about chemical burns.
Use a solution of warm water and white vinegar for a pool that is only slightly grimy. You only need about 1 part vinegar to 10 parts water. Dip your rag in the solution and wipe the pool clean. Toss the rag in the trash.
Without Chemicals
If a parent chooses not to use chemicals in the kiddie pool, the water must be drained after the children are done using it. This should occur within 24 hours. That means the parents must go through the hassle of filling the pool with fresh water each day. This is not a good use of water.
The slimy and often smelly film that floats on the water's surface is a distinct green color, so look carefully for it before going for a swim. If there's an off-smell, don't go for a swim and don't let your dog take a plunge either.
How do I keep a kiddie pool clean without chemicals? If you simply do not want to use chemicals to keep your kiddie pool clean, there is an alternative. Rather than chlorine, use Distilled White Vinegar. Add 1/2 Cup for every 100 gallons of water in your pool.
Clean and disinfect the kiddie pool after each use: Drain or empty the pool after each use. Leaving the pool full overnight is unsafe, both because it is a potential drowning risk and a potential waterborne disease risk.