Also in Louisiana, COMPLETELY new to pools

[aylad]

So once I get the test kit in and begin getting the chlorine up to shock level, how long will it need to maintain that level in order to kill off all the algae? Is it just a 24 hour thing, or will I have to find some way to test for living algae in the pool? Other than seeing the algae growing on the sides, how can I tell if the cloudiness in the pool is coming from dead floating or live floating algae?

With an algae bloom that bad, it won't be a 24-hour thing, but if you are consistent about keeping your chlorine levels up, it shouldn't take more than a few days to at least get the algae killed off. The more consistent you are about keeping the levels up to shock, the faster this will go for you. You need to maintain that shock level until you can test for chlorine at night after the sun is off the pool and again in the morning before the sun hits the pool, and not have more than 1 ppm difference in the readings. At that point you no longer have living algae in the water, and it will then be a matter of how long it takes your filter to clear the dead algae from the pool. The more hours per day your pump/filter run, the faster it will go--but you'll need to keep an eye on your filter pressure and clean your filter each time the pressure gets to be 6-8 psi over your "clean" pressure.

[aylad]

Jan, you must've been recruiting this season. Seems like we have a lot of new people on the forum this year from Louisiana!

LOL, as many folks from Louisiana as there are with pools, I'm amazed at how few of us are here!