The only way you're going to be able to lower the hardness is to drain some water and refill with water with a lower hardness level. You would need to test your fill water and see if it's worth that to lower it. If the hardness of your fill water is 400, though, you'd be wasting your time. Just don't use any cal-hypo products, and keep your TA and pH on the low side, if you can, to prevent milky water issues.

If the Bioguard kit is a drop-based kit, then it's going to be better than the strips that you're using--but at least the strips are better than nothing. If the pool is clean and clear, and you get your chlorine levels up to the 3-6 range, then there's really no reason why you can't swim--but I would go ahead and drop that pH as soon as you can because pH above 8.0 is hard on a vinyl liner.

You might also check with the owner's manual of your SWCG--most recommend a CYA level higher than that for optimal cell life. You can add CYA by itself--I get mine at WalMart--to get to the level that your manual recommends.

Janet