Refilling DE after a filter clean

[ddas]

I've got really high phosphates (1000+), so I taught myself to open up my Heyward filter, clean it out, and am now trying to treat with PhosFree.

I cleaned it out, closed it up, turned it on, added the recommended amount of DE (7 lbs), added the PhosFree (and the instructions say to use 1L then wait a week before repeating the process). Only then did I realize I didn't reassemble the filter correctly and I had some small leaks. So I ended up having to drain half the filter again, open it up, reseal it, and close it up.

Now my question is: how much DE do I re-add? The full 7 lbs? Half? (It sure looked like a lot of DE ran out the bottom after the second opening.) Is too much DE harmful? Should I err on the side of too much or too little?

Also, secondary question, I assume most of my PhosFree probably ran out too...so I need to re-apply that from scratch, huh?

 

[duraleigh]

I don't have a DE filter so cannot help on that.

I will say that if you search "phosphates" on this site you will find you are wasting your money and valuable time. This site encourages people to do their own testing accurately and learn what the testing means instead of relying on the Pool Store to "fix" things for us.

 

[Richard320]

I've got really high phosphates (1000+), so I taught myself to open up my Heyward filter, clean it out, and am now trying to treat with PhosFree.

I cleaned it out, closed it up, turned it on, added the recommended amount of DE (7 lbs), added the PhosFree (and the instructions say to use 1L then wait a week before repeating the process). Only then did I realize I didn't reassemble the filter correctly and I had some small leaks. So I ended up having to drain half the filter again, open it up, reseal it, and close it up.

Now my question is: how much DE do I re-add? The full 7 lbs? Half? (It sure looked like a lot of DE ran out the bottom after the second opening.) Is too much DE harmful? Should I err on the side of too much or too little?

Also, secondary question, I assume most of my PhosFree probably ran out too...so I need to re-apply that from scratch, huh?

Since you really have no way of knowing how much ran out, you're sort of stuck doing another backwash and recoat.

Who cares about the phos-free? I've never even had my phosphates tested!

 

[harleysilo]

I would recommend a backwash, and then recoat with 80% of the DE your filter requires as a backwash doesn't remove 100% of the dirty DE.

 

[ddas]

Interesting. (Obviously this was my first post ever to this forum, and I'm a newbie to taking care of my own pool.) I had no idea you guys were so anti-phosphate-control. Thanks for the input.

I really appreciate all the wisdom here. I'm sure I'll have more questions, but I'm going to immerse myself in Pool School for now and get the basics done.

Side note: it has been frustrating learning to take care of my own pool. Googling for pool information -- a lot like googling for medical or health information -- often returns contradictory advice, and how am I supposed to know which to follow?