New to forum and new to pools! Pool is green, help please!

[Rallioma]

So we bought a house in December, and there is an above ground pool (~9000 gallons, 21ft across, round) in the back yard. It was blue when we uncovered it, but we had trouble with the pump and filter hoses leaking and it was green by the time we got new hoses that didn't leak.

We added shock, algecide and clarifier from Walmart and got it blue and sort of clear eventually, but the chlorine always went back to 0 after a day. The pool store sold us acid to make the chlorine last longer, they said it is destroyed quickly in the Texas sun. We put a gallon of the acid in and the pool got really crystal clear but the chlorine still wouldn't stay after a day and the ph got wonky. We haven't really been able to swim in it all summer, and after going on vacation it is now swamp green again. Super frustrating! We are ready to try round 2, but I want to make sure that I am putting in the right things in the right order.

Right now it is circulating with the pump and filter, but super green and nasty. I haven't put any chemicals in yet. What should I do first to get this under control? Thanks so much for any help, everything I've read online has been contradictory and confusing so far, so I could really use some solid advice! Thanks!

[PoolDoc]

Membership updated - sorry it's taken so long to get back to you.

If you're still interested, do these things:

1. Get a cheap local OTO / phenol red kit (yellow / red drops)

2. Buy 10 gallons of 8.25% bleach at Walmart, turn your pump on, and add 1 gallon of bleach each evening. FIRST night, add 3 gallons!

3. Either purchase an HTH 6-way test kit (at some Walmarts) or a Taylor K2006 from Amazon (see test kit page in my blue signature block). We need to know whether you have stabilizer in your pool (cyanuric acid), and if so, how much.

4. Continue adding 1 gallon of bleach nightly, till we've responded to your post with posted test results from the 6-way or the K2006. SKIP a dose if the OTO test shows ORANGE (not a color on the test block).

5. Run the pool pump at least 12 hours per day (preferably, 24). If you have a low speed, use it. If there's no low speed, but you have a valve anywhere, throttle the flow back. Dead algae filters better at low flow rates.

6. Post the make / model / type of your pump and filter.