Low Ph and Chlorine in salt water pool

[Enphrared]

I have an Intex 18'x48" pool with a SWG that I have inherited and my test kit says that I have little to no chlorine in the water (very very pale yellow, almost clear) and the Ph is a very light pink, just a tad under the 6.8 indicator. I put the vial in about 2ft for the sample. I've been running the SWG for 7 hours not much change and then 10 hrs last night still no big change. I put my vials right in front of the jet coming into the pool (few days ago when it was on the 7hr setting) and I was seeing 2-3ppm chlorine on the test kit. Why isn't the chlorine showing up in other areas of my pool?

Also, I bought some borax and baking soda to get my Ph up. I have roughly 5500gal so I put about a pound of borax in there today while the pump runs. I haven't put any baking soda yet, waiting to see what the borax does.

As far as the water goes it's been in there for a week and it's clear. I hate for it to start going bad if I'm not reacting to what the test kit is saying.

[PoolDoc]

Use the borax, not the baking soda -- for several reasons. Use the baking soda when you wash greasy pots and pans after a big meal.

Your SWCG will not keep up if there's not enough stabilizer. Have you checked that?

[Enphrared]

I have not used any stabilizer. I will search your site on using it. I read on your site to use baking soda to raise the TA. I haven't tested the pool for TA yet as I need to get a test kit that will read TA levels. At any rate, thanks for the response. I'll research stabilizer use. =)

[Watermom]

You need to read your SWCG manual. Usually with those units, there is specific CYA (also called cyanuric acid or stabilizer) level required by SWCG manufacturers.

[PoolDoc]

With most SWCGs you need over 50 ppm of CYA (stabilizer, cyanuric acid) for them to be able to keep up -- on your pool, that's about 3 pounds . . . DISSOLVED. (The CYA you add, but then backwash out, doesn't count!)

Unless you have a skimmer, and can go 3 days without cleaning your filter, I'd use the sock method (hang a sock filled with CYA in front of the return).

Meanwhile, add 1/2 gallon of plain 6% household bleach each evening.

[Yeggim]

I think you're off on your volume of water. An 18' diameter by 4' depth comes to 7,600 gallons.

[Enphrared]

From Intex website:
http://www.intexcorp.com/easy18x48.htm
Says 5,455gal

Bought a 6 way testing kit this morning and tested the water a few minutes ago. The Ph is showing between 7.5-7.8 almost 24hr after the added Borax. I had the SWG running for about 7 hours from this morning and the CL is at .5.

Ph: 7.5/7.8
CL: .5
CYA: <30 (the water wasn't cloudy in the test tube)
TA: 30

So it looks like I need to get some numbers up here. So Doc, should I still go the course of what you recommended earlier?