Okay, still trying to get my head around this. The pool holds 4000 gallons of water.

We have BioGuard products. The water is being consistently heated to between 79 -81 degrees.

I did the initial "shock." Then, about 8 days later, one chlorine stick in the skimmer (when I couldn't find the test strips and everyone was saying be sure to add enough chlorine regularly enough...).

I have been adding lo'n'slow almost everyday, per the pool store instructions based on the initial water tests at their store, for a total of 11 x half-pound treatments now. The instructions that I was sent home with said to do this 18 times.

I finally found the AquaChek test strips that came with the pool and have used them twice, but I went ahead and bought the HTH 6 part test at Walmart to compare results. This is what I am seeing from the tests this afternoon:

With test strips: pH is between 7.2 and 7.8
free chlorine is between 5 and 10
total alkalinity is around 200
CYA is not more than 30

With HTH chemistry tests:

pH is 7.2
free chlorine is higher than 5 (the color is dark orangish yellow, off the chart)
total alkalinity is 240
CYA was clear, therefore low?
hardness was 350

I am confused by the chlorine reading being so high. There are no signs of problem with the water. We have been swimming in it almost daily, but only about 1/2 hour a day for exercise.

I also did some reading on pool water chemistry in the book "The Ultimate Guide to Above-Ground Pools" What I read said high chlorine had the potential for causing health problems, but no ideas were offered for what they might be or how to adjust high chlorine.

Thank you for your help,
Laura