Somebody please tell me this is worth it....

[Watermom]

Jen,
Take a look at this thread. Pretty miraculous.

http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/does...ill-algae.html

Hang in there. It WILL clear!

[kelemvor]

Here's my before and after. Took less than a week in my case, following directions from this site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/14865808@N00/4857680807 Lots of chlorine bleach, a gallon or so of muriatic, some stabilizer, salt, and viola. I think I added some ployquat as well, but I've since stopped using it on a regular basis.

I scooped and vacuumed all the junk I could (maybe 4 hours or so the first day). Then let the chemicals do most of the rest of the work (along with daily filter washes). I was sure I would have had to drain/refill when I bought the house too; but that was not necessary!

[JenLM]

Thanks y'all. Those transformations are amazing. =)

[CarlD]

And they are not just odd cases. I opened to green slime and in 24 hours was 90% clear. In a week, I was crystal clear. Why? I didn't panic (I knew why I opened to algae, and what to do). I looked at my wife, shrugged, and she said: "You know what to do better than almost anyone."
It's just not hard to do if you follow the rules, and rule 1) is: You need lots of chlorine, and it's best delivered as bleach or liquid chlorine (same stuff, only more concentrated.)
It works!

Carl

[JenLM]

Where do you buy liquid chlorine?

Thanks for the pep talk. I was able to see the missing part of my vacuum this morning so I am happy about that! It will be less frustrating once my kit comes in.

[Ken_J]

This year was the first time I took my cover off to find the green nightmare. 3 times, before I finally put a temporary fence aroudn my pool, my dogs and the neighbor's dogs jumped on my solid cover resulting in a whole lot of leaves making into the pool. I opened my pool on Saturday, added 5 gallons of bleach, scooped out 99% of the leaves and by Sunday night the water was blue but cloudy. By Tuesday the kids were swimming! Hang in there and follow advice from the great folks on this site!

Update: Just saw your signature and saw vinly liner. My experience is that inground vinyl liner pools usually don't have drains in the deep end - mine doesn't. A couple times a week I take the vacuum head and throw it in the deep end over night to pull from the bottom instead of the skiimer. It works wonder in keeping the water clear. Before I started doing this I would occasionally get cloudy water. Since doing this, crystal clear! Also add a little DE to my sand filter when it gets cloudy now.

[CarlD]

Pool stores sell Liquid Chlorine, usually in 5 gallon drums called "carboys". I prefer the square carboys to the round ones. They don't roll when you lay them on their side.

There's usually a $6 or $7 deposit as they are reusable. I've been changing over my 3 for several years now. Look for the basic LC price to be between $16 and $20 (good bargain -- pretty expensive). You'll need a spigot to dispense the stuff easily--they are $4-$5 but last for years.

If you have the option, find the place that sells the most of this stuff. That means they turn it over quickly and it doesn't have time to degrade. The place I get it from goes through several pallets a week, and even though they say it's 12.5% (just double ultra bleach) I find it tests out at 14% usually. (To test, add 10ml of LC to 10 liters of water--that's 5 soda-bottles--in a five gallon bucket and test the water like you would your pool. The resultant FC amount is equal to the concentration level).

[madwil]

Jen
LC is available in some pool stores, and sometimes hardware stores/Home Depot/Lowes.
Not available everywhere, though... I have to use regular bleach!
Seeing the vacuum sounds like improvement! hang in there a little longer, it'll continue improving and you have lots of summer left!