Still Cloudy

[Islander2C]

Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately, I work all day and I don't have an opportunity to test several times a day. I took the sample into our pool store where they test it and printed out those results.
We still have pretty cold weather here (Canada) only around 17 today. I don't have a heater for our pool. I think that will be next year.
Because my Total Alkalinity was low, I was told it could cause loss of pH control (pH Bounce) and corrosion and staining of pool surfaces. So they told me to broadcast 6.5 Kg of BUFFER over the pool's surface.
I don't remember having this much trouble last year gettin this pool clear?
Anyhow, I will keep shocking and vacuuming and praying to the pool gods for a clear pool sometime this week!

[brent.roberts]

To help make sure you understand, shocking is an action, not a product.

Shocking is raising the chlorine level in the water to a point that will oxodize the combined chlorine and organic dead stuff.

Pool stores sell "Shock" like it was something different. It is only an expensive packaged form of chlorine. The liquid chlorine that you see the pool store selling is exactly the same stuff as household bleach but at about double the strength. You can shock you pool just as well with bleach as you can with any other product and it will cost you less and here is the big thing ... it will add nothing else to the pool that will have side effects.

You might want to raise the TA as the pool store suggested but you don't need to by their "buffer" at thier inflated prices. The owner of this site "Pooldoc" suggests 50 to 200 range is fine. If you read more on this site and still want to raise it then use baking soda. Far less expensive than the same stuff under fancy labels at the pool store ... and purer ... baking soda from Wal Mart or the grocery store is food grade. Most pool store types will argue that one so don't even bring it up and save the hassle.

Do you have an in line automatic chlorinator that will take tablets or sticks ?
These tablets or sticks might be good for you now. You could get the same effect by dropping a couple of tablets in the skimmer and leaving the pump running. They will do 2 things for you. First they will continuously add chlorine to help keep it up and secondly they will add stabilizer (aka CYA) which you have none of if the test was correct. You will have trouble keeping chlorine in the pool on a sunny day without getting the CYA up to about 40. Once you get there you will want to stop using the tablets because they will continue to add CYA and you can get too much and its a real pain to get rid of it if you get too much.

A word of caution. If you have kids around you may think twice about using tablets in the skimmer. They have pretty high concentrations of chlorine and a kid could pick one out and create a problem.

Good luck

[Islander2C]

Thanks again...All great advice.