Hi bmlocal,

First off, you should probably go ahead and turn the SWCG off until you get the water cleared up. The SWCG is not capable of producing the amount of chlorine you need in a short enough time, and you're just wearing out the cell by trying.You'll need to manually chlorinate the water. Do you know what percentage of chorine is in the chlorine jugs you're buying? If it's 12%, then each 1/2 gallon you add should raise your FC by 2.5 ppm, so you can use that as a guide to know how much to add, once we know your CYA level. If you see brown/green algae in the pool, then you're going to have to kill it off to eliminate your chlorine demand. For now, until you know your CYA level, I would add 2 gallons of the chlorine nightlyto at least keep the problem from getting any worse until we can determine your true shock level.

Second, you are going to have to get a good kit in order to clear this up. Strips simply aren't reliable enough to help. You are going to need a kit that can accurately measure free and combined chlorine--the Taylor kit will help this project immensely.

Third, you're going to need an accurate CYA level before you even can begin to know how high your 'shock" level is. You report a CYA of 30-50 on one day, and then 100+ the next. That's not nearly close enough to work with. If your local WalMart sells the hth 6-way drop kit, it has a CYA test and enough reagents for 2-3 tests in it. You can get that and at least test for CYA until your Taylor kit gets here, so we know how much chlorine you need to be adding.

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