quick question. i was using SWG until it broke, now i'm back to chlorine for the time being. I'm in south florida. what should I have my CYA level at? do I need it higher because of the massive amounts of sun hitting the pool? i'm thinking maybe 60 for a good level?

I'd say start at 40-50 (unless you're already higher) but 60 is not a deal-breaker.....altho I would consider it very close to the max for a manually chlorinated pool.

i just tested, its at around 50 right now. I'm dumping 4 16 ounce cups of chlorine in a night and still getting algae. I really need an swg again.

Assuming Clorox is around 1.50/gal, that's about 60 cents each day. Not as convenient as an SWG, but the price is hard to beat.

If you are still getting algae, you probably need to shock the pool, although your daily chlorine usage would not indicate that.

If you have algea, you need to shock your pool. For your CYA at 50 ppm, thats a shock level of 16 ppm. For your pool size, you need to add 3 gallons of 6% bleach to hit shock level from an FC of 0. When you aded the bleach, where was your FC before adding it? I suspect you dont have enough FC in the pool to shock it. If you do have algea, dont add anymore CYA until you get it clear. more CYA will just make it more difficult since you will need more bleach.

i just did this like a month ago and went well overboard to make sure it was clear of any algae. I use the 10% chlorine I guess or whatever it is from the poolstore. I dumped 20 gallons over 2 days and then another 20 gallons over the next week. Then I was using 2 16 ounce cups a night, I'm guessing the algae started building from using 2 little at the start. I know i'm gonna have to do the shocking again, just trying to make sure I hae the daily stuff correct before buying all the chlorine again. But 50 or so stabilizer is right for florida?

50 should be just right.

Can you describe your "algae"? Are you sure it's not just dust/dirt/pollen? Have you done an overnight FC loss test?