Well, hubby added two packs of HTH Super shock and swim that he "found" while I was getting more bleach at Wallys. Ugh. The previous owners left a LOT of stuff. We bought the house last summer, and they had not opened the pool the previous year so the shock is at least 2-3 years old. Reading the package, my est is that the chlorine should be around 15 by now, and by using the distilled water method, I dilute 3 times and it still looks the same- the bright yellow that is the 5, or sl brighter. The pool is still very cloudy (can not see the bottom) and green. So I am guessing I wait until morning and test again? How long can I expect it to be like this? I have no clue how it got this bad. Last year, we had little trouble with adding chlorine a few times a week, and using the trichlor pucks 1-2 times for CYA (it never seemed to add much). This year, it seems (tho I don't have the CYA reagent yet, and I guess the sticks are inaccurate) that my CYA is much higher bc the same amt of chlorine was not enough. Last year, if it ever got slightly tinged, I added a bit more bleach and it cleared up overnight. I never had the clear (not green) cloudiness that started this whole downslide. It was nearly 100 today and we can't use our pool (that right now looks more like the Erie Canal). YUCK! I hope we didn't mess anything up with the shock and swim, though I don't think it can get much worse! We will definitely be sticking to bleach after this (DH got an earful!).

J