If you don't have Ben's testing kit, you need to get the 5 way test kit that I have seen offered at Wal-Mart. It will test Chlorine, PH, Alk and most importantly, CYA.

Depending on what testing system the pool store uses, those number could be inaccurate.

CarlD has been around longer than I have (going on 5 years) and knows his stuff. He is right about, bleach, bleach, and more bleach. With the test kit, you can dilute your pool water so you can measure up to 15 ppm which is where you want to maintain your chlorine to clear up your pool. That number could go higher using the Best Guess CYA Chart depending on the amount of CYA your pool has.

To do that, you need distilled water. Mix one part pool water with two parts of distilled water. When you put the water into the testing compartment and add the 5 drops of reagent. Multiply the numbers on the left by 3 to see your actually chlorine level.

In all my years of testing, my pool water has tested positive for CC only a few times. All were 0.5 except for one. That was when we had some young boys in the pool and they decided to use the pool as a toilet.

Hope this helps.