Newbie Problems! 45,000 12 ft inground pool circa 1971

[Shelliryan21]

Hey! This has been a learning summer. I bought a house last year with little knowledge about the pool. Only that it was well taken care of but had been closed for 2 years. When I opened the pool, I had it drained, painted and filled it back up. I went to my local pool store and put a cocktail of chemicals in and enjoyed a beautiful clear pool for about 2 weeks. Most of the summer it was very dull looking and my chlorine was always extremely low. I’ve spent a lot of money this year buying 25 gallon buckets of shock. ??‍I’ve been told it’s probably a pump/filter issue because I don’t know how old the sand has been there. That’s on the agenda when I open next spring to have new sand put in.
Anyway... I’m trying to get it clean to have it closed and I have what appears to be some growth on the pool floor. I did a mustard algae treatment a few weeks ago followed by large amounts of shock from the pool store. My pool was cloudy for almost 2 weeks and is just now clearing up. But when I go to vacuum it kicks all the debris up and gets cloudy again.
Also I bought a suction vacuum which is way too small for my pool. I have a manual vacuum and hose but I cannot figure out how to hook it up to my 1971 Clayton & Lambert skimmer baskets. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated! Pictures of growth on pool floor and skimmer baskets are below.

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum!
You need to follow the SLAM Process. To do that, you need a proper test kit, see Test Kits Compared. I suggest the TF-100 A proper test kit is needed to get the accurate water chemistry results needed to follow the TFP protocols.

Sand does not wear out. It can be compromised by pool store potions, especially floc and clarifier. You may need to deep clean the sand. See Deep Cleaning a Sand Filter

While you are waiting on your test kit, add 5 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine / plain bleach to your pool each evening with the pump running. This will replenish the FC lost each day to the sun and also inhibit any algae in the water from growing further.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

PoolMath will help you determine how many gallons your pool is, and also tell you how much liquid chlorine equals 5ppm in your pool. You can get the App or the use the classic web version found at the bottom of this page.

Maddie

 

[PoolGate]

The answer is always, "Use more chlorine!".