OK. I hadn't understood that. I thought you were saying there was still green algae. My fault, I should have mentioned the color earlier

Brown algae is dead. And yes, when the calcium 'sand' is present, the algae will remain brown inside those nodules till it's bleached out by sun and/or chlorine.

There probably IS some live algae inside some of the bits, but if everything you can see is brown, then you can move own. So do this:

1. Use muriatic acid to lower your pH to just below 7.0. That is, add acid till you reach 7.0, and the add a bit more. Read http://pool9.net/muriatic/
I added a half gallon just now. I'll check PH before bedtime to see if more is needed.

2. Dose with chlorine nightly, to maintain chlorine levels above 5 in the AM. I'm at dark yellow or about 13 ppm on the oto chart right now. I was in the orange range this morning and most of the day was cloudy. It seems I lost more chlorine today than I have over the past 3 days. Is that due to the higher PH?

3. Brush the scale after adding chlorine, if you can. Don't brush hard, just enough to knock loose what's already coming loose. Easy enough, between my wife and I we've been brushing twice daily plus running our cleaner almost all day.

4. Complete the pool chart: http://pool9.net/pf-chart/ so we can see what sort of pool you have. Stupid of me, should have done that when I joined.

5. Increase aeration by adjusting the return eyeballs to 'riffle' the surface. My eyeballs that are in my steps are a good 6-8 inches below the surface. I aimed them as high as I can. I can see minor riffling when I do. My other return riffles the surface nicely when turned slightly up Question; doesn't aeration increase PH? Am I negating some of the effects of adding muriatic acid?

One more thing. I had almost forgotten that we are going out of town this weekend to celebrate our son's birthday. That means two days without attention. I don't want to lose ground. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.