When you have a sludgy pool, you've got all sorts of active biological processes going on. Until your sludge is 100% dead -- and it doesn't sound like that's happened yet -- it's impossible to predict what will happen when you add chemicals, because there's no telling what the sludge will do. For example, the right kind of sludge will eat your CYA (literally) and poop out (pretty much literally) ammonia -- which consumes HUGE amounts of chlorine.

Beyond that, it appears you are still using 'guess strips' , which means neither you nor I know what ANY of your readings are, really.