Hi Janet

Thank you again for checking on me. It' only been a week, but we're so disheartened by what we hoped would bring us big smiles and great fun. We're almost ready to use it as a planter.

Unfortunately, I found you guys after I had been steered in several wrong directions.

I used 1/4 lb (oops) of cal-hypo in a kitty-litter bucket full of pool water. I did see some brown-ish color change and held off on shocking the pool. This am, there's tons of white sediment in the bucket (shock?) and its still very cloudy and when I stir things up - that subtle brown shows through.

Based on some old posts, I put a filter sock on and a Tri-chlor tab in the filter basket, hoping to 'catch' any fallen metals and put them in the filter rather than the pool (hope I understood the science behind that).

Think I should try a bucket of pool water and bleach (couldn't find a calculator to translate pool gallons vs bleach)?

Should I lower my Ph a little, too (it was 7.3 yesterday)?

I'm going to go to Walmart and look for the drop test you suggested and get some HTH metal remover (forget the actual name). A regular poster had recommended it because it's much cheaper than Pool Magnet, and I got the impression it does the same thing.

I really should have paid closer attention in chemistry class!

Part of me is determined to beat this thing and at the same time the other part is ready to drain the sucker and never look back.