I'd rather leave covering the pool as an absolute last resort. To keep my cover on means having the brass bolts raised. Too great a risk of someone stubbing a toe. I am making progress. Maybe not as fast as I'd like, but as I keep at it and follow your advice on chlorine, oh, etc, the algae is slowly going away. My biggest concern is the scale. I think my current course of action is helping, but getting the strange reading from the hardness test concerns me. I'm still curious what a yellow color result when the hardness indicator is used means with the HTH kit.