Sky High Phosphate Levels

[DHPerkins]

I'm just looking for some advice or to see if anyone else has had the same problem we are experiencing. We have a 21 foot round above ground pool with a sand filter and a propane heater for a little background. We live in Vermont and opened our pool about a month ago. It hasn't been warm enough to swim but we have been chasing our tails with sky high phosphate levels. I mean, like 5,000 ppm. We have used phosphate remover and it is slowly knocking down the numbers but we are still at 3,900 ppm after gallons of liquid chlorine and 5 bottles of phosphate remover. It's stabilized and has good chlorine levels. Everything is balanced except for the phosphates! It's so cloudy and we can't seem to figure out what's going on. The local pool chemical store workers can't seem to, either. HELP! We don't know what else to do.

[Teapot1]

Phosphate removers do tend to caise a temporary clouding. It would be a long haul to get that level down, what is the level of your top up water, are you fighting a loosing battle?
Sand filtration is at best around 20 microns so you need to help that side out a bit with a clarifier like Jollygel or similar.
https://mineralsi.com/products/jolly-gel

Better than sand is Dr Drydens Activate AFM ng glass media, filtration down to 1 micron so you actua3remove stuff not recirculate it.
How long are you running the pump for?

[DHPerkins]

We have a bottle of clarifier that we are going to put in tonight. The pump has been backwashed several times and is running 24/7.

[Teapot1]

Good luck, its a pain somtimes but youll always win but time is something the pool shops dont sell.