Eco-system (aka Swamp!) living in my pool...

[The Boyd Family]

We have our Waterway Clearwater II 100sq ft cartridge filter and 1.5 hp pump hooked up and have added 5 bags of powder shock and 2 gallons of liquid chlorine and ran our pump for 24 hours. Our pool was cloudy but the bottom was visible and there was a pile of algae/organics in the center of the pool as well as the outer rim. I tested the levels with a strip test (5 spot Insta Test) and the levels were good in all categories except hardness (not even sure what that is). Since our chlorine level was acceptable I added some stabilizer (cyanuric acid) to the pool to help keep it there. My husband physically got into the pool and attempted to manually vacuum the remaining organics at the bottom of the pool but we ended up clogging the skimmer basket many times and the vacuum line would mess up and we would have to prime the hose again and it was a headache.

He then scrubbed the whole liner of the bottom of the pool which created a lovely green cloudy haze that floated through the pool making it look like we had done nothing at all. My husband spent a few hours scrubbing and skimming with various nets and removed a lot of the debris. I did not get home when it was still light out so I have made my latest observation through the aid of a flashlight and out backyard flood lights. Now the pool has no more clumps of algae but it is the wrong color (greenish).

Should we try to just run the pump/filter and pray? Is there something we can add to kill and eat up the algae? When can we finally swim in this money pit? LOL! Our poor kids are wanting to swim so badly but we have to wait until it is safe.

thanks in advance for taking the time to answer my questions. It is very nice to have somewhere to go