Pool help, cloudy mess, no experience.

[daddyjmo]

I found this forum a few days ago and have already spent several hours reading as much as possible. I've read so much that I'm afraid Ive gone into a bit of information overload! We recently moved into our home and pool ownership is foreign to me, however, I'm willing to learn whatever it takes. Pool has always been green. We moved in end of last summer and tried for a bit to correct it, pool store style, and failed. This season I'd like to get it up and running. Best estimate is that it is 18,000-19,000 gallons. I have a new filter cartridge and a new Polaris working full time. I've gotten as many leaves out with a net that I can find (but I can't see the bottom to know for sure, so Polaris hopefully has my back there).

I started to try and implement the BBB method and am currently on day 3. Im going to count today as day one however because of a few mistakes I've already made:

- I don't have a tester kit. Big no-no I know, but I wanted to get started instead of waiting for one to be shipped. I will have one in the next few days. Looked for a cheapy one at Walmart but they didn't have one. I have a leslies 2 minutes from my house, but from what I've read I shouldn't buy their $60 kit, right?

- I now know that the bleach I was adding the first two days was not enough to bring it to shock level.

This morning was the first time that I had a real test done, and it was at leslies. Here is the readout I got there, I'm working on learning the acronyms:

FC - 5.0
TC - 6.0
pH - 7.2
TA - 100
CH - 330
CYA - 30

Since the test I added some more stabilizer (cya) and 6 gallons of bleach. I'm going to get it retested this evening to see if it is finally holding in the shock range on that chlorine estimate chart.

The pool isn't green anymore but it is really cloudy. Really, really cloudy... The color is a slightly blue but mostly light grey color. The Leslies lady said she had not seen a sample this cloudy before. Her recommendations were a $30 dose of fresh 'n clear followed by a $30 dose of pool first aid, I didn't buy either one.

Now, some kinks I have. I have the Polaris running constantly and empty it once or twice a day. I currently am running the pump with no filter in it just to keep the chemicals moving. One of my problems is that with the filter in, I am having to stop and clean it at least every 20-30 minutes because that is how quickly it reaches that magical 10 psi above it's starting psi. Is that normal? Should I put the filter back in and just deal with having to clean it so much? If so, what do I do about night or when I have to do leave and do something besides look at the pool all day? My other concern is with cleaning the filter so much, am I washing away all the bleach and stabilizer that I've put in?

Last little bit before I finish this epic tale... What should I be doing during this shock period? I'll keep getting tests done. Do I brush the sides and bottom? How often? Do I keep the Polaris going? Do I keep the pump on 24/7 or do I let it rest sometimes? Filter in always or sometimes?

A huge thank you in advance for your help!!!!

Jake