green water with high chlorine reading

[grammy57]

I am waiting for my testing kit to arrive. In the mean time I use the red/yellow drops tests and the strips both. The strips were showing that the TA was at the highest it showed and my Ph was high also. So we got some muriatic acid. We added the calculated dose and the pH was coming down. I added liquid bleach along with my one tablet in the floater. Our pool is an Intex type pool. It is rectangular and only filled about 30 inches so the volume of water is not real high. We filled the pool with well water which I know has a lot of iron in it. We live in the "boonies" so pool water is hard to come by and VERY expensive. My problem is this: I tested with the strip again and the TA was still real high so we added more muriatic acid. The water was getting slightly green so I shocked it with bagged shock from Menards that evening. The next day there was clumps of green on the pool floor and we vacuumed this up. I checked the chlorine level and it read 5 on the red/yellow drops test. But, the water is even more green than when I started. What did I do wrong? What do I do now?

[PoolDoc]

What did I do wrong? What do I do now?

It's hard to say: there's a reason we call the "guess-strips", but:

1. Stop messing with the alkalinity -- it's just not an issue on a small AG pool. Fix the pH -- but forget about the alkalinity.

2. If your pool has (or had) slippery sides, you had algae. More chlorine is needed - and maybe, more chlorine, more consistently.

3. If you did NOT have slippery sides, during or just before 'the green' -- I don't know what the problem is. Iron can turn pool water green, but I've never known that to happen when the pH was high (ie, > 7.6).

4. The problem may be the "bagged shock" -- these days, "bagged shock" can contain almost anything, including many chemicals that you do NOT want in the pool. Was it a single ingredient shock, or a 'multi' shock?