Help - problems with Bioguard MS11

[waterbear]

Well, the morning test results are in.

Sat Idx: .1
Actually pretty good but your Calcium is low for a gunite pool so that will change once you adust it. Don't lose any sleep over the Saturation Index. Not really that valid.
check out this thread and pay close attention to the last post by Ben (PoolDoc)!
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...turation+index
TDS: 5000
TDS-Salt =800...not a problem! Not that important. Don't lose sleep over it unless it is through the roof. It is simply a measure of everything (salt, calcium, bicarbonate, borax, etc. ) dissolved in the water.
CYA: 74
perfect for a SWG!
Tot Chlorine: 5
Excellent!
Free Chlorine: 5
Excellent for using bleach! Until you get the generator working you might want to keep this bwteen 5-10 ppm. Once it is working it will most likely be ok at about 3 ppm. See this thread for FC levels and shock levels for bleach. I run my SWG with 80 pm CYA and 3 ppm FC and have NEVER needed to shock since the SWG was put into use.
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=365
PH: 7.7
Bring this down a bit with some acid. Shoot for 7.2-7.4 SWG's create sodium hydroxide as a byproduct of generating chlorine so your pH will alway be on the rise. Check it AT LEAST weekly (along with your FC levels)
Demand drops: 1
Disreguard. This is a test that the pool store uses to determine how much acid you need to get your pH in range. pH changes should be made slowly. Add a cup or 2 of acid and wait a few hours and test your pH. You will soon learn how much acid YOUR pool needs!
Tot Alk: 125
Adj Alk: 103
within range!
Hardness: 165
You need some calcium in your pool to protect the finish. You can get calcium chloride at the pool store, walmart, home depot, etc. or you can buy a bag of Dowflake de-icer for a lot less and that is what Dow recommends on their website for pool/spa use and it costs a LOT less! Download mwsmith2's BleachCalc if you haven't already done so. It will help you determine how much of everything you need to add. It even had a salt calc!
http://www.hal-pc.org/~mwsmith2/BleachCalc262.exe
Salt: 4200
This is high. It might even be high enough to shut off the salt cell. The only way to lower it is to drain some water and refill. Try draining a foot or so at a time and then retesting. You want to keep it at about 3500 ppm max with your unit. On the high side is better than on the low side becuase when the salt levels are low it makes the cell work harder and shortens its life!
Borates: 30
Not a reading to worry about or even test for but actually it's perfect
for those that test. 30-50 ppm is considered ideal for algae control...whether it actually works at controlling algae is open to discussion.)
So, it looks like my fears were right and the cell is bad - and I've over added salt - do you think this is too high or can I live with this?
You probably need to lower it some and then you might need to rebalance the water a bit afterward to get you numbers back into the proper range. concentrate on getting the salt in the proper range first, however.
No visible scale on the cell, I let it soak in the diluted acid for over 20 minutes. I'm surprised it is bad already, according to the documentation this is the beginning of the fourth season, and the first was a very short one - so usage wise this would be the beginning of the third.
Cell life is rated in hours of use. If the salt level was kept on the low side or was too low for extended periods, the cell was used for shocking the pool (a BIG drain on it's life!), or the pump run time was short and the cell's output turned up to compensate these factors could be reasons contributing to short cell life. Also if the cell was not cleaned regularly and you don't have a self cleaning cell this could contribute to short cell life also. The estimated life of the cell is 5-7 years according to Goldline controls. Realize that this is a manufacturer's claim and your milage will vary.
I've ordered a new cell, should have by mid next week.

Anything else you think I should do?

Yes, get a GOOD drop based test kit and do your own testing! I would highly recommend the PS234s with the salt option that is sold in the sister website www.poolsolutions.com. You won't find a better kit for the money that will test for everything that you need! in the meantime you can get a cheap 5 way kit from walmart (about $15) but be aware that it will only test Total chlorine and not free chlorine, the pH indicator does not work properly when your chlorine levels are high, and the calcium hardness test has some problems and might not be trustworthy! You can order good test kits from Taylor Technologies but to get everything in Ben's kit you will need 3 different kits, spend a lot more money, and not be able to do as many tests before you need to reorder reagents (CYA is only enough for about 5 tests, for example!)
Hope this is helpful!