My water is a mess, I don't know where to start

[PoolDoc]

Ok.

1. Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) kit.
2. Start adding PLAIN 6% chlorine bleach at the rate of 2 gallons per 10K gallons, each evening. Test with the OTO kit: if the result is dark yellow to orange, skip dosing that evening.
3. The kit you have is compatible with the K2006, but not an adequate substitute. You can save the NEW reagents in the K2006 (inside, in the dark) and use the existing ones where they match. But, you still need the K-2006.
4. Leave the pool uncovered at night, and as much as you can during the day. Some of the stuff you are breaking down gives off gasses that need to be released. Also, solar UV helps break down things (when chlorine is present) that otherwise would stick around.

OK. Now the kicker. Pool years here seem to have themes, and this year's theme is, "Bacteria ate my pool's stabilizer and filled it with ammonia poop!"

Bacteria can degrade CYA several ways, some innocuous. For reasons we don't understand, sometimes ammonia is the end product, rather than say, nitrogen gas. This year, EVERYBODY's go no CYA and HIGH ammonia.

There's good news and bad news.

The good news, cleaning up ammonia is really, really simple: just raise the pH to 7.6 or above with borax, and add bleach till your FC level is at least 3x your CC level AND your FC levels drop less than 1 ppm overnight.

But, there's bad news. You will have to add bleach in HUGE quantities. We don't know how "huge", nor when you'll be done. You do NOT want to try to add it all at once -- you could end up with 50 ppm FC in your pool . . . no stabilizer . . . and a white liner, no matter what color it was before! So, you just have to add 10 ppm nightly till your done. On large pools, it's possible to have 100 bleach bottles when your finished.

Do NOT use dichlor or trichlor for this. But if you have a sand filter and access to cheap cal hypo, you can use that. Ask me first, because if you use it like it says on the label, you'll end with extremely high calcium levels, and then you'll have to clean up those.