What kind of plumbing do you have, e.g. galvanized, copper, PEX, etc.

Was the water always discolored? It sounds like you have tannins in your water. Tannins are a coloration of water due to organically decomposed material usually from vegatation. Tea and red wine contain tannins. It is common in shallow wells, surface water and other areas where vegatation can enter the source water. If that is the case then you need an anion exchange media to remove it. In some cases the anion media and can be added to the cation media in your softener. Both regenerate with salt. you may have to get a larger tank to accommodate the addition resin. The water professional who came to your house should have pointed this out to you. Andy

jvmagic, Cartridge filters filter better as they get dirtier. Your old fliters probably looked pretty ugly but because of the dirt they were filtering the finer particles in the water. Your new filters are nice and clean and actually have less ability to filter the fine particles. This could be your primary problem. You might try using a flocculating agent.

So I have a problem with my pool. It's been almost a week and my pool is extremely cloudy. My father usually takes care of the pool but since I was having a party coming up and my father was too lazy to do it, I decided to take care of the pool myself. The pool was opened a month ago and no chemicals were added except shock since the pool was opened. So I knew something needed to be added so I took a water sample to my local pool store and have them help me with what my pool needed, which was basically everything. The pool store told me I needed almost everything. They told me what to add and how much to add. They said to add a new chemical every 45 min from each other to prevent cloudiness. My filter was running the entire time. Based on the questions I was asking, they should have known I was new to this and should have told me that all the chemicals needed to be stirred in a bucket of water. All they told me was to put everything directly into the pool. So that's what I did. I even read the directions and still didn't see that it need to be diluted. So now I need help with my stupid mistake. I put the chemicals directly into the pool without diluting it. First I added 50 lbs of calcium. Forty five min later, I added 5 lbs of pH, an hour later 8lbs of stabilizer, then the next morning 18 lbs of alkalinity. Because it started to look cloudy I added 4 gallons of liquid shock like they told me then I backwashed the pool. It was still cloudy so the next day, I backwashed the pool again like they said then added 1lb of powder shock(without diluting it) because the instructions said DO NOT ADD WATER. Its been almost a week and the pool is still cloudy. I couldn't use the pool during the party and something fell in the pool so I had to take the net to get it out. I cannot see the bottom so I had to fish for it. That is when I noticed tons of chemicals at the bottom and moving it around made it even more cloudier. I put my robot in there and it has been picking up alot of the chemicals at the bottom but I know for sure there's more. Today I tried to take the net and pick some up but now its rough and seems like it is stuck to the pool. I just got this pool liner last summer and I know it is discolored for sure which is pretty upsetting. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make sure I covered the basics of what actually happened. I cannot see the bottom so I am not sure how much is still down there. BTW I have a 30k gallon pool and it is 9 feet deep. I cannot drain it because it vinyl. What should I do?