WaterMom...
thanks for the welcome and for getting back with me.

I thought I did follow the 7 day start up plan steps 1-5. The only thing I deviated from on this part was I used the ph Minus instead of borax because my PH was too high (8.3), so i dont need to add borax to increase PH I needed something to get my ph into the recommeded levels? I am also confused as to why this is "the 7 day plan" I filled mine in an afternoon and added dose of bleach on what was recommended. I saw a thread where someone asked about dose on 1700 gallons and got a reply to cut dosage for 2500 gallons by half so thats what i did.

On the intex pool care plan the recomended products on step 2 were not available to me at the time and i thought the shock and swim and clorine were equivalent. Step three says to add clorine each night (which I have) but have omited the borax because i dont need to raise my PH....yet

I would prefer to go by the methods that are tried and true from this forum rather than from a book "guidline" by HTH. But Im not sure that I am interpretating your instructions correctly. Perhaps reading here and then the HTH guidline has muddied the waters. So to make sure I understand moving forward should I.....

Add clorine with stablizer product you reccomend each night (always) and equal parts of borax regardless of PH and clorine levels. Also add 1/2 dose of clorine/stablizer before each swim?---(step 3 of intex pool care plan)
I do not use shock and swim---EVER

You can see my history from post above and what your saying is omit the "guess strip" and trust the 6 way test.

In short what should i do now. I did fill out the pool chart entry form and I plan to test ph and clorine again once i get home this evening. Nothing has been added today.