Quote Originally Posted by reichhartkg View Post
He said that phosphates are algae food, and as long as I have high phosphates, I'm going to be fighting it.
Typical pool store mumbo jumbo. However, if you don't have any algae, there will be nothing to eat the phosphates, high level or not. The key is to prevent algae in the first place.

The borax shouldn't be still sitting in the skimmer basket. You should pour it in slowly so it dissolves, not dump the whole box in one fell swoop.

Seriously, and I know it's hard, I would disregard most of the advice of the pool store and follow directions here. For instance, that super shock you're using will raise you calcium level. High calcium can also lead to cloudy water (with high PH I think).

All you need is bleach. And you need to keep the free chlorine at shock level based on your CYA until you pass the overnight free chlorine loss test. Something is consuming your chlorine and you need to keep shock level until it stops getting consumed.