First, the place where you quoted me saying chlorine was 0 was a mistake - must have been a typo on my part. It's never been 0. In fact I kept it over 5 when you suggested that.

I have already been brushing once a day and filtering 24/7. The new filters didn't help. Although I bought through your link and did order unicel, I got pleatco.

I've kept the chlorine high and have been putting in more than you'd think necessary. Green not getting even a shade lighter.

I'm not sure what happened to the hardness. Now when I test for it, the water does not even turn red. It's kind of yellow. I tested several times thinking i made a mistake. The filters are sometimes covered with grimy thick stuff, but it's yellowish tan not green.

For the bucket test, I followed your instructions. Added bleach, 15 min later no change. Still cloudy. Added borax. 24 hours, the cloudy was gone. Noticed sediment on bottom. 24 hous later, water still same, and OTO had the orange splotchy reading (not as bad as fill water).

We are draining at the end of the summer. Our poles are sinking in the mud, so we are going to fix that next spring. With this mess of water, we thought that would be best. We just need to get through the summer. The kids don't mind swimming in the pale green cloudy water, but they won't touch the nasty green pond looking water. My husband is about to go back to the chemicals just to get us through the summer. The water looked better this way. We definitely want to continue these methods next time though. How should we clean the pool later so as not to restart this next year?

I'll still take suggestions though. No one has added any goop yet. Thanks.