Thanks Richard for the reply - My PH is extremely low and initial test with the strips indicate the hardness is within spec. The CH levels will not stay up, I can get them up to about 5 ppm for a day with 2 lbs of shock, but they are right back down in two days even with a auto-chlorinator (using chlorine at an alarming rate with no result). Just to be clear - the water did get cloudy but only the undissovled soda ash turned brown. I was raising the PH based on advise from Leslie's from my water analysis
Thanks
Andy