If you look at the top of the multiport handle, sometimes water will leak out around the handle if the gasket is bad. It also only takes a few minutes to take the handle and top off the multiport and actually look at the gasket--it will be obvious if it has twisting or tearing and needs to be replaced.

If you had a "huge cloud of brown" under your steps when you moved them, then the brown settling you see might just be dirt or dead algae. Again, the only way to tell for sure would be the overnight chlorine test, as I described above. Do you see any of this on the sides of the pool, or just on the bottom? Do the sides of your pool feel slippery?


Janet