constant cloudy/green water. I'm going crazy!

We moved into a home this past November with a in-ground 30,000 gal fiberglass pool. We we moved in I could not tell you a single thing about pools. I still don't really know much! It has a salt water generator and a sand filter. For the 1st month or so (following previous owners instructions) the pool was stayed okay. Then things started to go bad. It was constantly shocking, adding floc then repeating these steps in a week or 2. I was spending hundreds of dollars at the pool store.

I hired someone to clean/add chemicals to my pool for me (my friend's husband has a pool cleaning company so I hired him) He comes every friday. I feel like things have gotten WORSE since he started. First he said we needed new sand. So his service guy came out and did some things for about $300 (he replaced the sand and did a few other things) This did not help at all!! The pool is still cloudy 90% of the time, and it turns green every 7-10 days. The salt cell reader started giving me salt level readings all over the place (my pool guy said my cell is probably bad) so we have just been using chlorine tabs, no more salt (I would prefer the salt). I am running my filter at least 12 hours a day. Here is what is strange to me: Since we changed the sand, sometimes discolored water comes though the jets right after the pump turns on. This usually starts happening about 2 days after backwashing. It is not sand, just dirty water. So we are backwashing alot. Before the new sand only backwashed once a week.

I am so tired of having a green and cloudy pool. If it is not cloudy it is green. We add clairifer to it constantly.
Went to the pool store yesterday. Chlorine level (1.7), PH (7.4), and alkalinity (100) were fine. The calcium was 175 (so they told me add calcium) and the stabilizer was 50 (so I added stabilizer). I added claifier this morning and the pool is starting to look green again so I added some shock. I really want to fire the pool guy, but I am having a hard time because I know his wife. I paid him $275 last month. I have little kids and I was really looking forward to enjoying the pool this summer, and now I want to fill up the thing with concrete! Can anyone please help me?!!

Hi, and welcome to the forum!!

Your pool keeps going cloudy and green because you're not keeping enough chlorine in the pool, period. With a stabilizer level of 50, a cl level less than3 ppm is an open invitation for algae. You need to shock the pool to 15 ppm (we recommend plain, unscented bleach for this) and hold it there until the pool clears and you can go from sundown to sunup the next morning without losing more than1 ppm of chlorine. This will requre that you be able to test your water with drop-based testing, no strips. In 30 gallons of water, each gallon of 6%bleach will raise your FC by 2 ppm, so you're looking at about 8 gallons for the initial shock. Then you need to hold it there by testing and adding more bleach as needed to stay over 15 ppm. Don't add anymore flocs or clarifiers-- they can make your problems worse if you're not careful, and you don't need them right now anyway.
Make sure you have a working pressure gauge on your filter, and don't backwash it til the pressure rises 6-8 psi over your. Lean pressure.

Janet,
So I just need to go buy 8 gallons of liquid bleach for the store? Just plain store bleach? (want to make sure I am adding the correct stuff). I added 5lb of shock this morning and clarifier, does that matter? I do not have a drop test kid, but I will purchase one.

Okay I just read posts on this forum for 3 hours. I will get some bleach and try that.