Too much bleach?

25K Gal IG, figure 8 shape
Chorine test turns orange
FC=??
PH=7.0
CYA=80-100

I've had a tough time opening my pool this year. When I took the cover off 4 weeks ago I could see the bottom, added borax to bring the PH level up to 7.0, added 20 gals of bleach and started vacuuming. I was away for a week and a dogwood tree dumped all it's flowers in the pool, came back to a dark green pool. Kept adding bleach and brushing and vacuuming. This made it a lighter shade of green. I got fed up and went to Leslies Pool store and bought a 50 lb bucket of shock ($110). i start6ed adding, about 5 lbs a day until I finished it up. Still a light shade of green. I have a test kit I bought from Ben last year and the FAS test for chlorine turns clear without adding any drops (I add the scoop of powder to the pool water sample and it turns pink then clear without adding the drops!). At the same time the Chlorine test turns orange with red streaks. I'm totally at a loss, I'm ready to call the pool guy again. Any help would be much appreciated.

Also, forgot to include: I used about 10 Tri Chlor tabs to help bring up the CYA (maybe to high at around 90)

If the chlorine drop-test is the one thats turning Orange, I believe that means your FC is 20 or higher. (I verified this over the weekend with my own pool.....DPD test said 22, OTO test turned orange). Your DPD powder might be bad, its very sensitive to moisture so if it wasnt stored correctly it might not be working correctly.

The CYA *might* be holding back some of that chlorine, although Im not sure 80-100 is really so bad that it would be holding back 20+ ppm of chlorine.

Are you losing water? Are all of your suction valves open? Make sure your return jet eyeballs are installed and pointed in such a way that it creates a nice swirl action thru the water. Make sure the mulitport valve on your filter is set to Filter, not recirc.

When you vacuum, are you vacuuming to waste? You didnt mention what type of filter you have, but I notice that sometimes (especially after backwashing my sand filter) the algae will get pushed back into the pool.....its just too small for the sand filter to catch it under high flow rates (I turn off the main drain valve while Im vacuuming via the skimmer). its possible your vacuuming is just putting some of the stuff right back where it came from. For the first few major vacuums of the season I vacuum to waste to make sure none of the stuff comes back into the pool.

How long are you waiting before vacuuming, after adding shock? I shocked my pool on Thursday, kept the shock levels up for Friday and most of Saturday, then vacuumed Sat. afternoon. Might be wise to let the chlorine do its job for a while before attempting to vacuum up the mess.

Good luck.

-Chris

Thanks Chris. I have a sand filter, I've been vacuuming to waste and running the pump on filter. I'm going to bring a sample of the pool water to Leslies, maybe my test kit is off. I'll let you know how it goes.