OK, went to pool store today and they said no iron or copper in the water. But the white steps and wide stripes in the shallow end are stained. Would that mean that copper is out of the water but instead of filtered out, it stained? Does that make any sense?

I think I do still a bit of algae, so the water color is probably from that. I shocked to 15 on Tuesday night, and it was down to 2 today (48 hrs later). It was holding CL better than that last year at the same CYA level of 35.

If you think the stains could be from iron/copper that is out of the water, I will do Ben's suggested process of lower ph (I am at 7.2, so that should be OK), lower CL (normal - 2.5 for me), polyquat, add the metal remover product, filter for a week, bump up ph, slowly add CL to 10. This worked for me last year, but I had an algae bloom and shocked - which put the mineral back to staining again - since it was before all the metal got filtered out. Does that sound like the correct process if indeed it is mineral stains?

- betty