Pool emergency -- the water turned brownish black!

I have a brand new 24 ft above ground pool. I have been slowly adding muriatic acids. Once that level was ok alkalinity 194, I added one gallon of bleach, per the BBB method described. Within a few hours, the water turned brownish black! Help! My test strip (I've ordered the drops, just have dip strip for now) still shows low chlorine. What do I do? It was perfectly clear before I put any bleach in it.

What is the source of your fill water? It sounds like you might have filled from a metals contaminated well??

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"Brownish-black" is a color I've only ever seen when pools were filled with well water containing manganese -- it's rather difficult to deal with.