I was thinking it might just be dirt because there have been a few times that we haven't swam for a few days and it stays the same and then goes away when we get in I thought if it was algae, it would be taking over.

Initially we didn't add any CYA. It said you could add just over a pound. I called Intex to see if we should add it and the guy said we didn't have to and that we could just wait and see if we needed it. Of course then we couldn't hold chlorine. I shocked it (once dichlor and once trichlor I think) based on the recommendation of the pool place. I brought up the no CYA issue which they ignored at first, but finally gave me. It was granular and I probably put in .75 pounds because we had trace amounts of CYA from the shocking. Also I heard it was very hard to lower and I didn't want to much. Once the CYA was in, we haven't had any trouble holding chlorine.

The alkalinity has always been high. It was 268 according to the pool store when we took in our first sample. All we had done at that point was put in the salt. I've read that the high alkalinity isn't as big of a deal if your ph is good. The pool store gave us Low and Slow to use to lower it, which we did the first week or two. But the directions say to stop if your ph lowers to 7.2, which ours has.

I was using the test strips and then bought the 2012 HTH kit which I think I saw on here as a good "cheaper" option to the Taylor ones. But I plan to get one of those.

Do you think I still need to lower the alkalinity?