Hello. I have a 30X30 round above ground pool. My pool looks like a lake and smells like one too. I started by adding five bags of shock and 3 large 3" chlorine tablets once or twice a day. Not much change. I poured a bottle of algaecide in it. Then I visited to pool store and he sold me 99% pure chlorine powder, which I dumped 4-5 pounds in the pool, I had a significant change overnight to the color, it changed to a lighter teal. Then we have had rain off and on, so I poured another 6 pounds of that in there over a week. My water is now a dark green. I have been testing the water and I can't seem to get my ph up (oh i did add two bottles of ph up) and I have added alk up (about 1 pound). This brings us to yesterday. Now the rain has stopped and I have a chance to do something. I am broke from all the expensive chemicals I have been using so I looked on the internet and found people have been using bleach, baking soda and borax in place of those 3 main chemicals. I dumped 4 pounds of baking soda in yesterday and 4 pounds of borax. The biggest thing I have noticed is that when I backwashed this morning for the first time the backwash was thick and dark green and there was a lot more of it. Am I making progress now? I have poured on bottle (gal) of bleach in this morning. I was told I needed to get my ph and alk in the right place before shocking. I only get six weeks of summer off and two weeks is already gone, I just really want to enjoy this pool before I have to go back to work. Help. please