I, too, was hesitant to commit to drinking the "TFP Kool-Aid" at first. Here are a bunch of folks who, while they're helpful and extremely courteous, don't know me or my pool, telling me to use only stuff you find at WalMart to maintain a pool. I mean, the pool chemical companies are in business for a reason, right? It can't possibly be as simple as all these folks make it sound. My wife thought I was absolutely nuts when I told her I was going to try what "those people online" were saying.
That was last May. I came here out of desperation, as my pool was a beautiful turquoise green. A combination of algae and copper-based algaecide were the most likely culprits.
After my 2-week-long SLAM (and some 100+ jugs of Great Value Concentrated Bleach), I settled into daily maintenance. Daily: Check FC, add chlorine as needed, clean skimmer baskets, check filter pressure. Weekly: Run full series of water tests, adjust pH and CYA as needed, backwash or clean filter as needed. That's it. I went from spending $100+ per week at the pool store to spending about $3.50 per day. My pool is safe, clean, and, well, trouble-free.
When I was relying on the pool store to tell me what chemicals I needed, I fought algae all season long. You name it, I fought it -- green algae, black algae, mustard algae. 2 or 3 times a season. And my water generally looked clear, but occasionally it would cloud up (right before an algae bloom...).
With the TFP method, I haven't had even an algae scare. Not even cloudy water since I committed. Embarrassing but true: One day, about a month after my SLAM, I was outside checking the pool. I noticed bright spots on the floor and walls of the pool that seemed to be dancing as the wind blew across the water. I called my wife out because I thought something was wrong. Just as she was about to light into me about how much it was going to cost to get the pool $tore to "fix it," I found an image on Google -- from TFP -- of "sparkling pool water." It looked exactly like my pool. I had never seen my pool water sparkle before I jumped on the TFP bandwagon.
I'm mixin' up a fresh batch of Kool-Aid. Who wants some?