OK, first things first. I'm now quite convinced that I don't have anything like 45k gallons. That was the estimate I was given by the guy who came to open the pool. 1 gallon of 12.5% bleach adds approximately 6ppm FC based on testing an hour or so after addition, and before there's too much sun. Based on some (probably poor) logic, I reckon that gives me about 21k gallons. Could someone point me to a reasonable methodology for estimating volume? Pool is L-shaped.

This morning's test results as follows:

12ppm FC (added 1 gal 12.5%)
1ppm CC
13ppm TC

pH 7.2 (added 4lb Borax)
100ppm TA
90ppm CH
<30ppm CYA (Dot still definitely visible, even when the test container was completely full).

I tried vacuuming to waste a little (multi-port valve to waste, inlet valve to main drain only), but the basket in the pump got clogged quickly, so I'm back to raking the leaves out, which has been my approach so far.

There was some stuff still in the shallow end that was too fine to be caught by the leaf rake, so I vacuumed that out, which appears so far to have been a success, although when I've tried to get it up before, it's taken a while to settle back down to the bottom.

Weather hasn't been stellar recently. Looking back over my notes, I seem to be losing 4-6ppm FC over the course of the day. I didn't make notes on which days were sunny though! Perhaps I was careless when I tested that day I appeared to lose nothing, or perhaps the weather was particularly miserable...

The pool was looking good this morning - I could see the remaining leaves in the deep end quite clearly. I'm going to carry on raking, filtering and (regular) vacuuming for the time being, I think. Anything else I should do at this stage?

As for swim time, I swam my first length this morning Probably not the smartest thing to have done; we're not there yet, but I was in the water vacuuming and it seemed to be the best way back to the shallow end. Felt great!

Just to put things into perspective, here's how it looked once vacuumed this morning, before I raked some more leaves and clouded the deep end up again.

boardend.jpgshallowend.jpg