Good morning and welcome, AWT.
I have been in your shoes with a vinyl pool, black water, TFP recovery, and well water
It can be done!
You've gotten excellent tips from everyone. There are a few I want to emphasize...specifically the importance of absolutely staying "ahead" of your slam/shock value in order to go the right direction, and quickly.
With the warming weather, you will be in a race against algae, meaning you want to try to find a way once you start to stay ahead of multiplying algae. I'd use "mustard shock level" from the CYA/Chlorine chart, and go over that a bit to make sure it doesn't drop below shock value before the next time you're available to add chlorine.
In my swamp conversion, that meant 60 gallons of bleach over a 12 day period. I bought cheap stuff from Aldis for under 2 bucks. These days, I actually use 12% from refills at pool store.
While you're waiting for your kit, keep scooping out any silt you find with your leaf rake. Since you've already gone from black to green, you might want to add 2 gallons bleach a day to see if that keeps it from going backwards.
Since you've spent a wad on cal hypo, once you can test your calcium level, you may find that you're still able to use it....a lack of calcium level in a vinyl pool doesn't matter but it is is possible if you have way too much calcium to still "scale" and have that combine with iron...I'm not sure how much calcium cal hypo adds...might be worth searching these threads to find out. So, short story is don't throw out the cal hypo just yet...you might be able to use more in your slam once you can calculate how much is already in the water and how much you'd be adding.
While TFP is generally a liquid-chlorine-based concept, the real philosophy of TFP is to reliably know and predict outcomes based on specific parameters and testing...so using cal hypo if you have "room" to add a bit of calcium is not verboten
Other notes:
1. In your shoes, using the pool calculator, (
http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html )I'd go ahead and add the cya/stabilizer to 30 to help stop sun from burning off all your FC. Add it now, don't add more, and don't expect it to show up in reading for a week. But assume you have 30 ppm when you start your slam, and dose to that level using the CYA/Chlorine chart.
http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/128-chlorine-cya-chart-slam-shock. - you will eventually be vacuuming to waste, which means you'll lose some of it, but in this case it will be cheaper to add a bit more when your slam is done than to have the chlorine burn off too fast
2. I could not initially vacuum to waste either without clogging. Hence the suggestion to continue manually scooping and letting the water clear. If you still have leaves, this might help you:
http://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Tools-8...F8&qid=1430133239&sr=8-3&keywords=leaf+gulper
3. My filter is sand...de might require even more supervision, but you IMHO need to be filtering when slamming this kind of recovery...24/7. So get the filter ready and be prepared to clean it out/backwash a lot the first few days. Backwash any time the pressure is 25% higher than normal.
You might want to half-close the main drain in the beginning to avoid clogs from silt on the bottom. Be sure to clean out your pump basket if debris clogs it....usually, a drop in filtering pressure indicates its getting choked up. That basket will e righ in front of your pump, with a removable lid.
4. Is your home on a water softener? If so, ask your softener company (if its a rental) for your water reading from when they installed it. Iron in the water can be released when slamming -- "oxidized" -- and can change the water color but dont panic if this happens. if you suspect metals a all (which i would) i dont think it would hurt to add a bottle of metal sequestrant now. TFP generally recommends either jacks magic or Metal Magic. I get the latter from
http://www.poolgeek.com/products/proteam-metal-magic-1-qt
If you DO hav a water softener, a reading will NOT be meaningful from an indoor, softened tap. That's because your outdoor faucets will likely bypass the softener. If you decide to get. Metal test kit, only test the outdoor sources.
For the purposes of just getting the slam handled, you don't need to get one, but if you have metals you I'll eventually want to help reduce the amount you're adding with top up water by using a filter on the hose, which has helped me a good bit over a few yearsin terms of reducing my iron load.
Lastly, I'm sending you the tfp mojo to get your pool to sparkly fast
Here's a pic of 12 days of shock and awe on my recovery...
Cheers!
