Hello everyone. I have been reading much of the posts here and have learned alot. I have a pool in Eastern PA.
I opened my pool this weekend. 25,000 gallon gunnite. We have had it for about 3 years now. Every year I have used granulated chlorine to shock once a week and 2 trichlor tabs in the skimmers as maintenance. Last year I had a heck of a time trying to keep my chlorine up.
Now, based on what I have read so far, many of you know what I'm about to say....My CYA is ridiculously high!!! using an HTH 6-way test strip I have:
TH 400 - FC 0 - pH 8 - TA 180 - CYA 150

I shocked the pool initially on Saturday with 2 bags and added 2 quarts of Algacide. I have not yet backwashed.

Today I added 6 lbs of pH down. (3 hours later, didn't reduce it much)

I took a sample to my pool store. They say I need 6 lbs of pH down and 10 bags of shock and didn't say anything about the CYA.

Here's the thing. I know the stable chlorine did this to my pool.
I want to do something different this year but can't afford a SWC right now.

Please tell what you all think I should do - and in what order as it seems I have a couple of things going on here.

I am very curious about using household bleach. If I decide to go that route, what is the best and how should I start out using it? If I do use bleach, should I still continue with the trichlor tabs?

Help!!

Thank you.