Opened the pool about 10 days ago. As usual, and despite a new cover, there was a fair amount of leaves and organic matter in the pool. The water was greenish.

In the past the pool company would take the cover off, reveal green water, dump $300 worth of chemicals in the water,turn it cloudy, vacuum for 4 hours or more and put 12 pucks in the skimmers (about $1000). The new guys on the crew would shake their heads and say I would have to drain and refill. The old hands would say that the neighbors down the hill complained of flooding in the past when 30K gallons were pumped out of the pool; so be patient and give it a week. Amazingly after a week it was indeed OK.

This year it was my turn! On opening the results were as follows:
temp 52F, TC=0 FC=0 cc=0 ph7.2 Alk=20 Ca=30 cya=0. Pretty dreadful.
Some hours after a total of 10lbs Borax, 10 lbs NaHCO3, 12 gallons of 6% bleach and 2Ilbs calcium hypochlorite and 12 pucks the results were pH7.5 TC=1(?) FC=0.5 CC=6: I had visions of burning 80 gallons of bleach as Ben has hypothesized and began to wonder of I should drain and refill (takes 5+ days since well runs dry)!

I remembered what the old hands had said and put my faith in the large sand filter (7sqft), a 2HP hayward pump, aggressive leaf removal and more bleach.
48 hrs later the water was still murky and pH=7.2 FC4.5 CC1.
8 gallons of bleach, 10lbs borax and 2 days later the water was essentially clear. After 1 week results were; crystal clear water at 60F, pH7.5 Tc2 FC1.5 CC0 Ca 100 cya <20. A quite amazing triumph for Ben's approach and for the collective wisdom of the forum, although I have to admit to a grudging respect for my former pool guys instincts.

I have lots of pucks left over from before my conversion to the BBB method so I plan to keep the pucks going until I get the cya into the 40-50 range. Any idea how many I will need for a 30K pool and assuming there is no longer any consumption of the cya by algae?
Thank you