Good morning! New here...

[Pippy]

I've been using my HTH kit. (After reading here that it will get me through about 6 weeks, I've decided not to order the "real" kit until next summer because that's about how much pool time we have left and I don't want to order it just to have it age over the winter.)

I've been adding one dose (1/2 c for my 3,284 gal pool) of dichlor each night and when each group swims. There has not been much swimming going on because it has been unseasonably cool, and the water temp is in the 60s.

Here are my results:

Mon. 9/28

Chlorine 5
PH 7.2
Alk 60
Hardness - no change/negative (I only tested this on the first day to see what would happen. I filled the pool with water that went through a softener so I was pretty sure this wasn't necessary.)
CYA - I did not do this test (and still haven't) since it was a new fill.

Tues. 9/29
A.M.
Chlorine Bright orange and off the (limited) chart on my test
PH 7.2
Alk 60-70

Repeated Chlorine and PH test in P.M. just because of high chlorine result in A.M.

Chlorine 5
PH 6.8

(Added a dose of borax for the first time with nightly dichlor. Also covered the pool overnight to try to retain some heat since the temp was going down at night.)

Wed. 7/30

Chlorine orange again - estimating 25 by the color chart here
PH 7.2
Alk 60

(No one swam Wed. Too cool! Added beach at night instead of dichlor because the small pack I found that met the requirements listed here for buying dichlor had run out the night before but my pool boy didn't mention it until it was time to add it again tonight.)

Thurs.

Chlorine light orange, still off my chart though
PH 7.2
Alk 70

Water has looked great all week.

How am I doing? Any suggestions? Should I cut down my dose of dichlor to avoid the high reading I got the last few mornings?

[Watermom]

Yes, if you are getting orange chlorine readings on your OTO tester, then you do want to cut the dose down. That is way too high for a pool with such low CYA. Maybe try 1/3 of a cup and see what that does.