Water is cloudy and light green-Need Help

[vjpool]

My pool is cloudy and light green. Yesterday I vaccuumed, backwashed, rinshed and added 2 lbs of shock. This morning, the pool is still cloudy and light green. I took a reading 30 mins. ago. Please tell me what I need to do to clear up the pool and get it back to blue. I have a 16x32 inground gunite pool. Many Thanks. My readings:
Total Hardness = 250
Total Chlorine = 3
Total Bromine = 3
Free Chlorine = 3
pH = 6.8
Total Alkalinity = 40
Cyanuric Acid = 30-50

[chem geek]

If you add pH Up it will increase both your pH and your TA. Just get the pH up to around 7.4. You need to shock the pool with chlorine at 40% of the CYA level so that's 12-20 ppm FC depending on your true FC. Just go with 15 ppm FC and keep it there until the chlorine holds overnight. You'll need to add chlorine periodically to keep it high as it will get consumed by the algae (as it kills it and oxidizes the remnants) and will get broken down by sunlight during the day.

The rule to getting rid of algae is to shock a pool with FC at shock levels until the chlorine holds overnight and there is no visible algae (or cloudiness). You should also vacuum to waste if dead algae accumulates near the bottom. You need to backwash your filter if it's sand or clean it if it's cartridge or DE.

[vjpool]

Thx Chem Geek. I have added 3 cups of Alk Up and the directions says to test after 4 hours. The green color is not appearing to clear and it's been about 3 hours. Also, I read where people can see the bottom of their pools - I never have since I became pool owner last year - even when I had a company coming in weekly. Also, you tell me to add chlorine, can I use the store bleach that people speak about as an alternative to pool store product? You mentioned 15ppm of FC but my test kit only reads to a level of 10. How else could I gauge? Thanks.

[Buggsw]

Yes, you can use regular unscented chlorox which is 6% chlorine or you can use pool store liquid chlorine which varies from 10% on up to 15%.

The best way to test is to purchase a FAS/DPD type testkit which will test higher than 10 and usually to 30 or more. With that type of kit you will be able to test your Total Chlorine as well as your Combined Chlorine which will give you your level of Free Chlorine. Combined chlorine is the bad ineffective chlorine - it's good to have 0 and anything over .5 means you need to shock. We pretty much know you need to shock.

In a pinch, you can used distilled water on a ration of 1 part to 1 part of your pool water to test with. If you use a shot glass for each, it makes it easier for mixing. So a shot of each mixed together.

Then when you test, you multiply your reading by 2 to get a ballpark of what your chlorine level is.

The alk up wouldn't clear your pool. You just needed to get it into the proper range and if it was a vinyl pool the level below 7.0 could damage the vinyl permanently.