Losing water, dirt/sand in water, air bubbles, and pump loses prime after shut off

[donnosu]

Good afternoon all. We just moved into a house with a fiberglass pool, pentair pump, and sand filter. It has 1 skimmer and no main drain. It seems after I did a backwash last week everything started to go south. First the air bubbles appeared with the pump unable to fill completely with water as you can see it swishing around in there and I have dirt/sand in the pool. A couple nights ago the pool lost 1 1/2 - 2 inches of water with the pump off. Last night I kept the pump on and woke up this morning with the pump sucking in air because it lost the same amount of water again. The pressure is fine on my sand filter and there is no water around any pump or filter or heater. I'm going to do the bucket test tonight, but seems obvious there is a leak.

Help!!!!

Thank you.

 

[Richard320]

Is the waste/backwash port connected to a hose, or is it hard-plumbed into a sewer or off to the far side of the property somewhere?

If the spider gasket has failed, any time the pump is on, water can escape via that port and if it's piped off somewhere, you'll never see it.

 

[hellstorm2004]

How To Determine Why a Pool Pump Won't Prime - INYOPools.com


How to Identify and Correct Air Leaks - INYOPools.com

 

[Razorhog]

I was having similar issues last year. Replaced the spider gasket and it solved the problems. It's an easy and cheap fix, give it a shot!

 

[donnosu]

There is no water around the pump or filter and I have no hose connected to the backwash. I plugged the skimmer line last night and lost 1/2 inch. I also did the bucket test and did not lose any water there. I didn't run the pump at all yesterday.

I noticed another issue. We have a hot tub with a spillover. It has its own pump, but also has a line connecting to the pool (I think return line only). The hot tub is losing water as well even though I turned off the return line valve.

 

[donnosu]

I'm fairly stressed about this, so I am going to have a pool company come out and see if they can figure it out. I'll keep you updated.

 

[donnosu]

So I had a guy come out and pressure test the lines and they all were good. He did a dye test and nothing showed up. I have not ran the equipment in 2 days and I've lost 2 or so inches in the pool and the hot tub is over half empty now.

If there is a leak in the hot tub shell, would that cause my pool to leak if they are connected somehow? The gameplay right now is to continue to let it go down until it stops. Hopefully soon. The water loss seems to have slowed down quite a bit.