Is there a Trick to Getting the Sand Filter Piping Set?

[beartoothweb]

New Sand filter owner, always used cartridges until now, so this sand filter thing has me baffled.

I need to add some sand to the filter after an initial "wet run" to see that all was working. When I took the top off, the filter piping stuck a bit and pulled the spider-type assembly up and out of the small amount of sand that's in there.

I'm a strong guy, but even with twisting and turning, I can't seem to get it set in there. The way I did it the first time was to drop the filter on its side, then re-upright it. Is that my only option here? I'm working in a bit of a temporary setup for the next couple of days, but don't want my water to take a turn, so I really would like to keep it all working.

Any one have a trick for doing this, or is it just as obvious and messy as I think it is?

 

[beartoothweb]

Alas, after some head scratching and google searching, I just decided to wet-vac the sand out...this will give me a chance to reclean it all and take care of it property. Nothing's broken, so that's good, and all will go together nicely.

 

[duraleigh]

Glad you got it fixed. I hesitated to reply because I haven't had my filter apart for 7 years, but I was remembering it to be an almost impossible job to reseat that post with ANY sand in there.

 

[beartoothweb]

Glad you got it fixed. I hesitated to reply because I haven't had my filter apart for 7 years, but I was remembering it to be an almost impossible job to reseat that post with ANY sand in there.

Yep, that's what I learned...it was good though, I needed to wash all the Crud out of it anyway, and it gave me a chance to get it "like new" clean. The sand, which is actually that Zeobest stuff was pretty dirty. I bought the equipment used, and had just hooked stuff up as a temporary measure. That was a mistake as well since I've basically been blowing dirt and gunk into my brand new water...lesson learned. I'm filling and vacuuming to waste now, several times.

BTW, is the vacuum to waste the best practice? It really dumps a lot of water in a hurry, that's for sure. The dirt in my area is like flour, so it's a very fine stuff, and I'm not sure if the sand filter is getting it.