I'm another newbie as of a few minutes ago. It's July and my pool is still green. Hired a "professional service" and they were just as bad as me at keeping it green. Our pool is AG, lazy L, vinyl liner, 30K gallons. New liner last year. Well water with lots of rust/iron.
Testing results are as follows:
From hth test strips (I have read to dump these--and will)
TH=200
FC=10/20
PH=7.0
TA=80
CYA=30-50
From my test kit (I'm thinking this is not accurate either)
Chlorine=3.0+ (turns almost orange)
PH=8.2+ very purple, indicates to add acid

Had the water tested at pool store today, and they said PH was low, add PH up--which I had from "professionals".

I have bugs in the skimmer baskets---must think it's a pond!

Help!