Hello TFP folks! I've had minor annoyances with fine dirt at the bottom of my 1 year old in ground concrete pool that can only be removed via a robo Vac and a fine filter. It only happened at the end of last season enough to have to run the vac once a week to get the pool bottom very clean. I had this minor issue in my previous pool which was actually in the next property over, but it was minor.
Fast forward to this season and man, I just can't get rid of the fine dirt settling at the bottom of the pool and there is much more now since I left the pool uncovered over the winter. I've had to use the robo vac (Polaris 9550) nearly a dozen times in a week and there is still some brown dirt left. It's a pain because it ends up clogging my vac so I can't run it very often without having to rinse and repeat.
I didn't think too much about this and thought that, hey, I live on a dirt road, this is what I need to deal with. But here's the kicker - it's a lot worse in this pool compared to my previous pool which was one house over that was closer to the dirt road, and around way more trees, compared to my house now. It wasn't until I realized that I'm seeing it more under my return jets that got me thinking that it's not even being picked up by my sand filter. I thought about it more and then I noticed that even some undissolved chlorine granules are making it through my filter and out of my return jets - see attached picture of a tanning ledge that has a return jet, along with a small bit of undissolved chlorine right where the return jet is aimed. Is it normal for even chlorine granules to make it through a sand filter?
Was thinking of doing the following in order:
Inground, concrete
Polaris 9550 robovac
Filter: Pentair SD80
4/15/24 Chem test:
FC - 9
CC - 0
pH - 7.6
TA - 70
CH - 375
CYA - 80
Clogged robo vac filter - this stuff makes it through the "normal" robo vac filter, however, and settles or is sucked back through sand filter and redistributed by return jets.
Fast forward to this season and man, I just can't get rid of the fine dirt settling at the bottom of the pool and there is much more now since I left the pool uncovered over the winter. I've had to use the robo vac (Polaris 9550) nearly a dozen times in a week and there is still some brown dirt left. It's a pain because it ends up clogging my vac so I can't run it very often without having to rinse and repeat.
I didn't think too much about this and thought that, hey, I live on a dirt road, this is what I need to deal with. But here's the kicker - it's a lot worse in this pool compared to my previous pool which was one house over that was closer to the dirt road, and around way more trees, compared to my house now. It wasn't until I realized that I'm seeing it more under my return jets that got me thinking that it's not even being picked up by my sand filter. I thought about it more and then I noticed that even some undissolved chlorine granules are making it through my filter and out of my return jets - see attached picture of a tanning ledge that has a return jet, along with a small bit of undissolved chlorine right where the return jet is aimed. Is it normal for even chlorine granules to make it through a sand filter?
Was thinking of doing the following in order:
- Add DE to skimmer then brush pool and run pump and see if it re-deposits on tanning ledge from return jet (If my filter may have channeling, should I worry about DE making it past my filter and redistributed since it's an irritant?)
- Crack open sand filter and perform a sand filter deep clean, then brush pool and run pump and see if re-deposits
- Possibly replace sand with Ruby Red sand (worried that installer could have used trash sand?)
Inground, concrete
Polaris 9550 robovac
Filter: Pentair SD80
4/15/24 Chem test:
FC - 9
CC - 0
pH - 7.6
TA - 70
CH - 375
CYA - 80
Clogged robo vac filter - this stuff makes it through the "normal" robo vac filter, however, and settles or is sucked back through sand filter and redistributed by return jets.
