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A swimming pool pump has to have water in it to run properly. If the pump isn’t primed and tries to run when it’s dry, the components will overheat which can cause the pump to seize up and can even damage the PVC pipes that carry the water into and out of it. Essentially, running a pump that isn’t primed can lead to having to replace the entire pump.

No, shock and chlorine are not the same thing, though they are related and both are used for pool maintenance. Regular chlorine, often in the form of tablets, is a sanitizer used for routine, day-to-day maintenance to keep a steady chlorine level. Pool shock, however, is a highly concentrated dose of chlorine used periodically for a more intense cleaning. It rapidly raises chlorine levels to fix issues like cloudy water or algae growth and also eliminates chloramines, which are byproducts of regular chlorination. Because their purposes and concentrations differ, they are not interchangeable, and proper pool care typically requires using both.

Yes, you will need to shock your pool with high levels of chlorine or bromine when you first fill it to kill off bacteria and pathogens. You’ll need to wait for the chlorine concentration to come back down to a safe level before swimming. After that, you can test and maintain the chlorine and other levels as normal. The only exception to this is if you get pool water delivered by a professional. In that case, the water might come pretreated, so you might not need to shock it.

Yes, you can use food coloring to find a pool leak. Alternatively, you can use pool detection dyes that are nontoxic and biodegradable. Depending on how much food dye you have on hand, it may be more cost-effective to use pool dyes.

The dye test is one of the best swimming pool leak detection tools because the dyes are heavier than water. By observing where the dye gets sucked in, you can find the location of your leak.