Good advice. In addition to maintaining a high level of chlorine and brushing the sides and floor, why not begin filtering? If the pressure rises you can backwash it. This will help clean it up faster.

I seem to recall that vinyl pools like a slightly lower pH (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken). 7.6 is fine, however I think the chlorine is more effective at slightly lower pH levels.

The pH in my gunite pool tends to rise to 8.0+ over time so before shocking I lower it to 7.2-7.5. Once you begin shocking, the high chlorine affects phenol titration so testing pH becomes problematic.

Contrary to what I've read on some pool sites, neither sample dilution (adding deionized/distilled water)* nor induced low chlorine (achieved by adding thiosulfate) will result in a reliable pH reading since both workarounds impact pH.


*Sample dilution using newly manufactured, properly stored and unopened deionized water is better than nothing but it makes sense to me to heed Taylor's recommendation to just wait for chlorine levels to come down before testing pH.