I've read through a bunch of posts

[DonDon1145]

Here's my situation. My skimmer line has a small leak so my vacuum doesn't suck like it should. Then add in the bottom drain, I assume has a leak since cause when I turn the dial at the pump to the bottom, it stops pushing water to the return jets and some air bubbles come out just before it quits pumping. I've got someone coming over to repair the skimmer line to the tune of about $600 but just don;t have the money to get the bottom drain fixed yet.
Taking that into account, every time I go by the pool, I used my long handled brush to stir the water up all over the pool so all the water gets filtered. It's still abit cloudy but getter better now after using a water clarifier and a good long vacuum to waste, then refill to proper levels.
This is my first time having a pool and a friend told me to only use Granulated shock to adjust my chlorine. I had a real bad metal stain and used a BUNCH of Vitamin C to get it off. Most came off but the water became real acidic. I got it back in check using baking soda so the PH is good.
Is Shock the best way to get chlorine in the water or should as I see alot of folks doing, add Bleach instead?

Pool vitals:
18'x36 inground with liner. (+/- 22,000 gallons)
Hayward pump

[Watermom]

Is your metal stain from your fill water?

[DonDon1145]

not sure. It sat up all winter long and I did circulate it every few days but leaves other debris got in there;. I assumed it was a vegitative stain til I tested it with a couple of Vitamin C tabs. I put them in and where they were sitting, the liner was clean. From what I had read, that would be the vase. The Vitamin C tabs would clean a metal stain. When we bought the house they did not disclose the pool had any problems. NOW I find out about them form the neighbor. He said the other folks thought they had all the problems fixed. NOT

[DonDon1145]

OK, I ran a few tests with the K2006 test kit I just bought. that thing is tricky. LOL
The Chlorine was right where it's supposed to be; PH was about 7.4

I also did the total alkalinity test and it took 14 drops so I guess that's 140 PPM. The Booklet said from 80-120 PPM is what you want

I read somewhere that a high total alkalinity would make the pool cloudy. How do you adjust it?

[PoolDoc]

I read somewhere that a high total alkalinity would make the pool cloudy. How do you adjust it?

Not true. Arm and Hammer has been doing some deceptive marketing of baking soda as a method of clarifying a pool. This is bogus.

High TA + high CH + high pH can precipitate calcium carbonate, and make your pool cloudy. But I can put a teaspoon of baking soda into 8 oz of water and dissolve it, and the water remains perfectly clear, even though I've added around 600 ppm of TA! Why? there's not enough calcium present to react with the baking soda.

You can lower your TA if you like (http://pool9.net/alk-step/) but it's unlikely that that's why your pool is cloudy, unless your CH is also high OR unless you added baking soda AND calcium increaser (calcium chloride) at the SAME time.

[DonDon1145]

I did add baking soda. The pool place I went to tested my water a few weeks back and said to add 3 pounds of Shock AND 3 pounds of Baking soda. Then they had me add 2 more pounds of shock the nest day. I was told the baking soda was to raise the PH. The CH was in the range it calls for BUT it was on the high side.