Question about shocking pool

[Cygnus]

Hi all,

I've read quite a few posts as a new owner of a pool that is black/green. Most of what I've read said to clear big stuff out first with a big leaf catcher (not a skimmer).

2 questions:

1. Can someone link to what a "large leaf catcher" looks like? I think I just have a skimmer, but googling for "large leaf catcher" does not help.

2. I think my pool is about 35,000 gallons. I put in 3 lbs of a Shock treatment that was already at the house. I don't know how to run the filter yet, it seems complicated. Do I need to be running the filter after I put in the Shock treatment? Or do I wait for the Shock to do it's work (and clear things up), then worry about running the filter?

3. Basically is it Shock then debris or debris then Shock? And where does filter come into play during all of this?

4. How long do I wait for Shock to work? If it's say 2 days and it's still pretty black/green, do I Shock again? How many times do I keep Shocking before I consider the problem is something else?

Many Thanks in advance,
Cygnus

[Pooltech32]

http://www.pool-store.com/detail.aspx?ID=991, this is similar to what I use to get the big debris,
so to start off I would get as much junk out as you can, add a bunch of chlorine/bleach to your pool, to maintain a reading of 5ppm for a week at least, this will kill the algea, granular shock is fine once the pool is cleaned up but can really plug up your filter if you are doing a start up. Run the filter in the "filter" postion and backwash every other day till the pool clears, this can take up to a week if the pool is really bad.
If you have a chlorine reading for the whole week and the pool will not clear you may have a filter issue but that can be determined later.
Scoop.brush, backwash, repeat repeat and repeat!!

[Cygnus]

Thanks for your reply! We've bought a leaf net similar to what you linked to and will be heading out there tonight to start de-leafing! Hopefully the shock I did 2 days ago will have kicked in some as well.

Regards,

Cygnus