First pool, might be our LAST...name says it all!

[aylad]

Hi Swamp Mistress, and welcome to the forum!!

The first thing you're going to need to do is step back, take a deep breath, and relax a minute. I know that you've got a scary looking pool on your hands, but it is not impossible to fix, believe me. You DO have to stop throwing things in it hoping to make a difference, though, because what you're doing is making the situation worse, not better.

You need to test your water, using a drop-based test kit, and post some results here so we can help you get this figured out. WalMart carries a 5-way drop kit for about $15 that will work for now. If your WalMart doesn't carry it, then take a sample to the pool store, have them test it and give you the printout, then post the numbers here--but don't buy any of the stuff they're going to try to sell you. No more algaecide, no "shock", nothing--except a test kit that uses drops and measures more than just Cl and pH, if they have one, and maybe a bottle of metal sequestrant IF your water tests positive for copper or iron. Make sure they include a metals test when they test your water.

In the meantime, keep your filter running, cleaning it as needed. Use plain, unscented, generic bleach for chlorine in your pool at this point--assuming 3800 gallons, each cup of 6% bleach will raise your chlorine by 1 ppm, and you need to keep yours in the 3-5 ppm range, so add some at night before you go to bed, then again somewhere around mid-day until you can get some test numbers posted. Come back, get your numbers posted here, and we'll help you go from there.

Janet

Edit: for right now, do not worry about staining on the liner, and DO NOT put any acid on it trying to clean it up--we can deal with stains later, after your water is cleared up. There's a specific type of acid (ascorbic acid) that you use if needed, but that's a bridge that we won't need to cross for a long time yet.