Just wanted to say hello to everyone.

I'm in a similar boat with the OP and last year gave up on the pool service company in my area.... they'd never show up, and the one time they did they sent people who didn't have a clue what they were doing. So I started doing my own work.. and found PoolSolutions which led me to stop buying "pool" chemicals from specialists...

Anyway, this year, opening was fine, water was clear, but all of a sudden the algae has taken over, and it's just May (water is still very cold)!

So I did some research here and then discovered my cut-rate chlorine is only 3%. So I haven't been using enough. I'll get the 5% stuff, try to bring the level up and then test. It's a 20K-gal IG concrete pool...

Finally, wanted to say thanks to the regular contributors to this forum. I just discovered the forum today (despite referring to Ben's site for a year now) and look forward to learning a lot from you guys