I appreciate the quick feedback. I did order a test kit and am looking forward to "freeing" myself from the pool store. My wife thinks I am a bit crazy and is skeptical of everything I am doing so far.

I will take the advice and live with it for now. I am having another issue though and am hesitant to act until I get my test kit.

My new issue and this one is far worse than the dark stain. My salt level is showing as 0. I have tried resetting the unit and getting a new reading but nothing. It seems as if I was stuck in time for a while. I bought my house 3 weeks ago and had to add 7 bags of beginnings. I have kept up with the renewal and had a reading of 3100. Then it just stopped and went to 500 and has gone down to 0 in less than 24 hours. Once it was so low I added 240lbs of mortons pool salt and the number went down even further. I checked my chlorine with my tabs and it was 0. So I added bleach to shock the pool.

BTW. I took a sample to the pool store and they just had me get some balance pack 100 and maintain 100. Was told I was low on CLA and needed to stabilize.

Is this a sign that my cell is going bad?

I think it is best to just stop and wait for my test kit.

I know this is kind of a random post but I am kind of freaking out and now my wife is giving me those "I told you" eyes.