We are struggling with our water again for the Third Year. The past two years we have had chlorine demand issues. The first year we dumped about $800 worth of chemicals to fix the problem. Knowing that these chemicals are not good for our equipment, last year we emptied the pool and started over. This winter we placed a cover over our Rhino cover to keep everything out. We did this because it was believed that the pesticides from the orchards and fields around us were getting into the pool and causing the problem. We opened on Saturday to a very clear and clean pool. We dumped in two 1 pound bags of granular shock on Sunday morning. Results today are as follows. Total Chlorine is 1.3 with 0 free cholrine. PH is 6.3 and Alk is 54. Here is our problem. Our pool chemical supplier wants us to dump 25lbs of alkalinity to bring it up, We did this about two years ago and ended up with a staining mess. Then they want us to dump 10 one pound bags of granular shock. Looking for some help. I would think a better approach is to add Liquid shock (Maybe start with like 4 gallons). Since PH is not that far off (and I was always taught to control PH first) try and bring that up as well. After that, we could add Alk but at lower rates, like maybe 5 pounds every other day. We have an ingound pool/vinyl liner/ about 23,000 gallons of water. Any thoughts.