What is your source of fill water that has hardness that high? OR, are you using shock that has calcium in it? What are the ingredients of the shock you are using? What did you use last year as your source of chlorine? For now, just use bleach.
I am using well water. The ingredients on the shock I am using are 12.5% Sodium Hypochlorite, 87.5% Inert Ingredients. Last year, I used 3" chlorine tabs (don't remember the brand and no longer have the container), HTC super shock bags, and the same shok that I listed the ingredients above.

What is the wall height of your pool? Do you have a dug out deeper middle section? I'm a little skeptical about a 4.5ft deep AG pool.
I checked the wall height in one area and it is 4ft. The pool came with the house, and I think that the previous owners that installed it may not have installed it on level ground, as there are some spots where it seems to come up higher on me than others when I'm outside the pool (I'm 5ft 3in).

What kind of test kit did you buy? Does it have an OTO chlorine test (yellow drops) or a DPD chlorine test (match to a pink comparator?)
The test kit I bought is a Kokido 6-way Swimming Pool Test Kit, which measures pH, Chlorine/Bromine, Alkalinity, Hardness, and Stabilizer. The chlorine test is marked as OTO. I found a listing for it on Amazon (currently unavailable, but you can see what came in the kit): http://www.amazon.com/Kokido-6-Way-S...pr_product_top

I need to go to Walmart this afternoon anyway. How many gallons of bleach should I get? And just one of the distilled water?