Dirt coming from jets during vacuuming

[osp001]

Howdy, all. My neighbor moved, and while the house is on short sale, I've asked if I can use the pool until the bank takes it. When I took it over, it was green, and opaque below about 18" or so; water tests showed phosphates were extremely high (1000 ppb), so I used a phosphate remover. That allowed chlorine to do the job. All other water parameters are within norms, and I try to keep chlorine around 5 or a little higher. CYA is 70, a bit on the high side but apparently normal for Arizona. Now the pool is just murky. I've backwashed- twice- re-charged with DE. When I try to vacuum, I get a lot of dirt out of the jets. I disassembled the filter, brushed off the elements (which now I know not to do- just hose them down). It's one of those Hayward filters with a manifold on top. There are no obvious holes in the filter. The slip fitting between the manifold and the filter plumbing is a bit cracked, but not enough to explain the amount of gunk that gets back into the water during vacuuming. I replaced the gaskets on the plunger valve; the bottom one was completely ripped, with a 1/4" gap. I thought perhaps that would put an end to the dirt re-entering the pool, but- no joy. So, now I have a filthy pool, a filter that doesn't filter, and no idea where the leak is. By "dirty," I mean that the water coming out of the jets has relatively large particles, as well as copious fine particles- it's like pouring chocolate milk into the pool, it's so opaque. There's an obvious problem somewhere in the filter line. Again, I was getting bad filtration even before I removed the filter and removed what I could with a brush- not that I was aggressive with it, but I don't think I damaged it unduly. I've read through a bunch of posts- I'll try draining some of the vacuuming water next time I do that- but is there anything else I'm missing that I could do? I'm pretty much ready to give up since the bank is going to own it soon anyway; not going to buy a whole new filter when I can't use the pool, after all.

 

[kimkats]

The filter is not filtering like it should. It might be because it did not get cleaned like it should. I wonder if there is enough DE in it? Look up the model and see how much DE it is called for with that filter.

Kim