In desperate need of help...

[Cammie895]

sorry, I thought he was referring to the clarifier and all the other specialty products they sell. I guess I figured that prettymuch all chlorine is the same. I'm all for doing it the poolsolutions way (people tend to be more honest when they aren't trying to get ya to use their chemicals).
I guess I just got a bit scared of the bleach for my kind of pool because I only ever add about 5-6 cups at a time and my liner still turned white and feels a bit rough now when we walk on it - I was worried it might be corroding it (I'm sure that could have been caused by something else but I have no clue what). Thank you all so much for your help. Tomorrow I will get another test kit and pick up some bleach.

[day1]

In testing with the walmart 5 way kit, use 5 drops of oto and pH in the sample
and then cap and turn over. For cya test, fill big to 7ml mark, then cya reagent to the 14ml mark. Slowly transfer cloudy solution to cya view tube until black dot disappears on bottom. Read side of tube to get CYA ppm.
Alk test...fill bottle to 25ml, then add 5 drops alk indicator and swirl>should turn green or bluish. Add alk titrant drop by drop and swirl. Keep adding and swirling until it turns red, then multiply each drop by 10 for total ppm. Same exact test for total hardness, I've never done that test though since I have a liner pool. My pH stays ~7.4-8.0 which is alittle high, but safe. Remember, adding bleach will raise pH. I use muratic acid to lower pH.
For cloudiness, I use clarifier, run pump and vac next day. Works great.

[Cammie895]

Hello again : )

I tested my pool with the Walmart kit. My results were:

FC 5+
CC ?
TC 5+
pH 7.6
Tot Alk 170
CYA 50
Calcium Hardness 0

I say 5+ on the chlorine readings because the kit only goes to 5 ppm but the results with the OTO were a very dark yellow and have been there for over 2 days now. It could be at exactly 5 ppm and staying there, or it could be somewhere over 5 ppm and just hasn't dropped under it yet. We even got a good rain yesterday thanks to Alberto and the FC & TC still read as high as the tester goes. This makes me onder how I shock the pool if the tester only goes to 5.

I can finally see the bottom of my pool again. The problem is I can see that the pool bottom is still covered with yellow algae. I've been stirring it up so the filter can get it, then it settles agin, then I repeat. I used a lot of copper algaecide about 5 or 6 days ago. When the water is clear like it is now I go in with the vacuum to get the nasty stuff off of the bottom and I can see yellow water shooting back in the pool from the filter. I'm wondering if the filter just isn't good enough to get it out. The algaecide said it has a clarifier in it that is supposed to make the tiny particles bigger so they will stick in the filter. I don't think that is working very well.

Can someone please tell me what to do from here? Thanks again.

[SLR_65]

Yep, follow the advice here and things will work fine!

We had a 12" donut pool with just 1700 gallons last year and I was able to keep it running just fine with no algae blooms, etc..

I just started up a 14" donut pool and will follow this forum's advice again.

BTW, we used bleach exclusively last year and no problems at all - no fading, etc.. The pool just couldn't stand up to two black lab puppies my sister-inlaw tossed in the backyard with it, so we had to get a new pool this year!

/Steve