So far so good. I went to the Home Depot and found a one and a half inch PVC plug thingy instead of putting back the filter. This should totally prevent any water from getting into the filter intake valve. Of course I only thought of it today: What about the jet holes? By the way "plug thingy," "filter doohickey," "jet holes," these of course are all very technical terms of jacuzzi ownership. If you don't have a jacuzzi you just wouldn't know, LOL.
I have to kind of sit and watch this fill for two reasons. Primary of course, to see if any leaks sprout. But also because the way my janky house is, I don't have an outside water spigot and I didn't bother to go and find a faucet to garden hose attachment doohickey when I was at Home Depot, so I'm filling it by way of a sump pump sitting in my bathtub as I'm running the bathwater just enough to go halfway up on the sump pump device in order to submerge it but not totally submerge it. Not submerging it enough could blow out the motor since it needs to suck water, submerging it too much puts the end of the quite hefty electric cord in the water and I'm a little skittish about that, never mind putting an electrified device in my bathtub to begin with.
It's filling at a pretty good rate though. What we see in the picture is only after about 20 minutes or so so I expect I should probably be going out taking a look at the level maybe right about now, so I'll end this here.
I'll post back when it's full and sitting for a few hours to ensure it's not passively leaking, then I'll condition the water with some lovely chlorine which I still have from 4 years ago I hope it's still potent, and by this afternoon when the temps are expected to be in the upper 90s again, I'll be relaxing in my little pool. Ah!