So, i added some DE to my sand filter. Ugh!

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So I don't have much to add, EXCEPT that the SAME THING happened to my "sand filter".

Odd thing is, the ONLY common element is we both have BRAND NEW systems. MAYBE if we have "clean" sand/media the DE doesn't have anything to "bind too" and it just flows right on through.

Anyways, I was able to keep vacuuming and vacuuming and finally I got everything to clear up again. I tried vacuuming to waste but all I did was waste a ton of water. What I found is that every time I vacuumed, the filter seemed to TRAP a little of the DE, pressure never raised, it just slowly cleared up. The DE would POOL on the bottom, and if I did not disturb I could pick up. I also did most of my filtering on SLOW SPEED and that seemed to help.

Best of luck!
 
I would try to use a filter sock. A paint filter would work too.

If you must add something to the water, I'd recommend using clarifier rather than flocculent. Clarifier seems to work better when it works and that's not nearly every time. Be sure to follow the directions completely.
 
Thanks, toofast and Dave. Filter socks are on the UPS truck already :)

The sand being too new and clean certainly sounds plausible.

I stumbled across a thread somewhere that describes my exact scenario. The same exact thing happened to that guy. He used food grade DE at first. He then tried pool DE and it immediately went into the filter and STAYED there, and his pressure gauge showed an increase almost immediately. He was then able to vacuum to return ALL of the food grade stuff that had been deposited on the pool bottom. Now, this doesn't mean this'll work for me, as I may have a filter issue, but it was reassuring to read.

I'll post my results later on today. I'll be taking a big chance adding pool DE to the filter, but really, what's the worst that's gonna happen? There's already DE all over the place. I'll just have to vacuum a bit more. I gotta give it a shot.

As far as the spider gasket is concerned, I'm gonna call the pool co today and speak with one of the techs there and poke his brain. Before adding the wrong DE, my filter has been working properly. No sand spewing, no leaking at the valve, no weeping out the waste, etc. The time it took from the DE to disappear from the skimmer is the same time it took to come out the return. I have to think if something was that wrong with my filter, I'd have other issues. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way, I should have my answer later today.
 
Brushpup said:
::epds::
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Lol

Well I picked up the stuff on the way to work. It's white, rather than charcoal in color. It feels a bit more coarse. More of a flour texture. My feeling at this point is it's gonna go right through again.

Looking forward to trying it out....and probably further contaminating my pool :?
 
NHfloater said:
It's white, rather than charcoal in color.
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:shock:

Charcoal in color??? :shock: :shock:

I've only seen white/cream colored DE. I guess if the new goes through as well, you'll have a nice creamy grey in the pool?

I'm sorry, but I say stop the madness of additions. Lets try to find out for sure if there is a filter problem. At this point, I'm not confident that additions are working in your favor at all. What if more make it even worse? Then what?
 
Patrick, you are correct. It is cream in color. My mistake.

I tried the pool DE. Some of it did in fact come out the return, but it seems the more I put in, the less came back out. The good news is my pressure has increased by about 1 psi, so obviously some of the 1 cup I added, stayed in there.

I can see where you're coming from as far as adding more stuff to the water. Here's my logic. There's already the majority of 2 cups of DE on my pool floor. The ONLY way that's gonna get out is through vacuuming, maybe to waste, maybe not. In my limited knowledge of pool filters, and the fact everything is brand new, I don't think there's a filter issue. My pool co agrees. Now, I hope I'm not coming off as arrogant to you guys, who I know have MUCH more experience than I. I just think I used the wrong DE to begin with. Getting back to vacuuming. If this new pool DE does what it's supposed to, I SHOULD be able to vac through the filter to remove it. In addition, any turbulence in the water, be it from swimming or the return current, will also kick up the food grade stuff and hopefully get trapped by the filter. Either way, there's gonna be a LOT of vacuuming to be done. It's just a matter of how much water I'm going to lose. Whether I'm removing 2 or 3 cups of DE is relatively irrelevant at this point, IMO. I feel the gamble is worth it as it really doesn't change the potential work in the end to remove it.
 
No Mike, I didn't think you were arrogant at all. Maybe just a little :crazy:

:lol:

Just didn't want you making it worse and the charcoal color thing really spooked me. Well, perhaps you can filter and vac to waste to see what happens. Exhaust that option before you add flocs or "clarifiers". I'm still skeptical about the DE getting through, but I'm sorry, I am at a loss for another suggestion.
 
NHfloater said:
Patrick, you are correct. It is cream in color. My mistake.

I tried the pool DE. Some of it did in fact come out the return, but it seems the more I put in, the less came back out. The good news is my pressure has increased by about 1 psi, so obviously some of the 1 cup I added, stayed in there.

I can see where you're coming from as far as adding more stuff to the water. Here's my logic. There's already the majority of 2 cups of DE on my pool floor. The ONLY way that's gonna get out is through vacuuming, maybe to waste, maybe not. In my limited knowledge of pool filters, and the fact everything is brand new, I don't think there's a filter issue. My pool co agrees. Now, I hope I'm not coming off as arrogant to you guys, who I know have MUCH more experience than I. I just think I used the wrong DE to begin with. Getting back to vacuuming. If this new pool DE does what it's supposed to, I SHOULD be able to vac through the filter to remove it. In addition, any turbulence in the water, be it from swimming or the return current, will also kick up the food grade stuff and hopefully get trapped by the filter. Either way, there's gonna be a LOT of vacuuming to be done. It's just a matter of how much water I'm going to lose. Whether I'm removing 2 or 3 cups of DE is relatively irrelevant at this point, IMO. I feel the gamble is worth it as it really doesn't change the potential work in the end to remove it.
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Well you had more luck than I did...meaning no matter what my Pool DE just kept coming back. I stopped after 3 cups and no increase in filter. Funny thing though I could NOT see if blowing back into the pool, until it was all cloudy.

Sounds like things will work out for you!
 
Maybe sand age has a bit to do with it, idk. You figure, new sand, jagged edges and not much dirt embedded in it at all. My pressure is up 2 lbs to 17, so the pool DE is settling in and/or it's picking up what was deposited today and a couple days ago. Extremely happy to see it's continuing to go up. Gonna go for a dip and kick and brush the stuff up off the bottom. Filter socks will be in Thurs.

Toofast, I'm assuming it was pool DE? Was your sand new or newish? Through my recent research, I've read where more than a few people had this issue, but have no idea about the details. I know the white DE was harder to see than the cream, but this was probably because not that much was coming out. The cream stuff made my return look like an under sea black smoker.

If you could see how fine the food grade stuff is, you may have a different opinion on the filter being at fault. I've never seen a finer powder. The closest thing I can think of is ash that comes off burned incense or the fine soot you'd find in an oil furnace. Even finer than that.

I'm holding off on any further clarifier or floc til a few more days pass of 24/7 filtering.

Thanks again for all the posts. I'll update in the near future.
 

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Sand age doesn't have anything to do with it. I was able to add DE to my older sand (I had to replace a filter) last year with no issue. That sand was installed in 1989.

A pool builder might have more experience than you. A pool store employee most likely does not. I've outright asked the employees at the store near my home if they have any real pool experience. None of them have ever owned or maintained a pool.
 
RobbieH said:
Sand age doesn't have anything to do with it. I was able to add DE to my older sand (I had to replace a filter) last year with no issue. That sand was installed in 1989.
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+1 Robbie
To borrow some words from our friend woodyP..."Hey, you ever been to the beach and thought, that sand sure is wore out" :mrgreen:

RobbieH said:
A pool builder might have more experience than you. A pool store employee most likely does not. I've outright asked the employees at the store near my home if they have any real pool experience. None of them have ever owned or maintained a pool.
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Classic! :lol:
 
RobbieH said:
Sand age doesn't have anything to do with it. I was able to add DE to my older sand (I had to replace a filter) last year with no issue. That sand was installed in 1989.

A pool builder might have more experience than you. A pool store employee most likely does not. I've outright asked the employees at the store near my home if they have any real pool experience. None of them have ever owned or maintained a pool.
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Thanks for the clarification, RobbieB. I was under the impression that while the jagged edges of the sand are what ultimately trap typically sized debris, old, more worn, sand would have a tendency to pack in tighter, thus becoming more efficient at trapping smaller particles, with the trade off being water flow.

The person I spoke with at the pool store was one of the owners. The biz has been in their family since the 60's and I'm confident he knows his stuff. I 100% agree with the employees generally not knowing much other than how to make a sale.

Enough typing. Gotta go take a DE bath in 73 degree water. Good thing my gut has an R value of 26, but it's not my gut I'm worried about.
 
Well the DE is working great. I went out and swept the pool bottom several times last night in order to keep the food grade DE particles suspended in the water. This AM my water looked crystal clear again but still had some deposits on the bottom. My best guess was there was 1/10 of what was there the morning after I added the clarifier. My pressure is almost 19 now and the return flow has diminished considerably. My skimmer socks will be in tomorrow afternoon and I'm going to continue letting the pump run and giving the bottom occasional sweeps.

After it's gone, my plan is to give the filter several normal duration backwash/rinse cycles with some pump off dwell time in between in order to ensure the obvious.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with the "new sand" not being a potential issue. I fully realize the the fact "old" sand is erroneously blamed for water issues. Trying not to bring semantics into this, perhaps I should've use the term "sand bed age" rather than "sand age". As referenced in my previous posts, I was talking about the inherent, somewhat permanent, debris that collects in filter sand over the years. This debris MOST DEFINITELY increases the sands ability to filter out smaller particles. In fact, adding pool grade DE is fundamentally creating this situation. Would the food grade stuff have blasted right through a 10 year old sand bed? I can't say for sure, but it's almost a certainty more of it would have been trapped. I don't wish to start another "my sand is worn out" war. I'm simply citing my particular situation based on the common sense of how filter media works. That is why I questioned the age of my sand. Just wanted to clear that up.

The bottom line is, I used the wrong DE to start with.
 
Awesome...glad this worked out for you.

So now the ONLY difference between our issues is that the "new fangled media" i.e. glass pak etc., does NOT WORK with DE and even though they CLAIM they do a better job filtering, we know SAND is better than ANY OTHER MEDIA.
 
Toofast, there are no glass packs on my filter, though I'd imagine they would give it a nice throaty rumble ;)

Patrick, it's all good. I certainly deserve a bit of hazing after all this sillyness, especially since using gardening DE is listed in the "sticky" as NOT suitable for a filter application.

Thanks to all who contributed to the thread :cheers:
 
duraleigh said:
I certainly learned something as well, I remembered food grade DE being discussed some time ago but forgot it was not suitable.
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Excellent. Aside from my primary reason for choosing the food grade DE (the actual quantity required for my needs), the other thing I was thinking was the pool grade stuff MUST be the same and it was just a bit of a marketing "scam", like many other "pool" additives, ie; baking soda and its pool store equvalent, made by the manufacturer to claim their product was specialized for pool use. Well it IS specialized, and I learned the hard way.

Toofast, still confused over your glass pak comment, I searched around and found a thread you contributed to. It was actually quite amusing, though I'm sorry you also found out the hard way that it was ineffective. The only glass packs we know in these parts are the ones that cause blue lights to appear in yer rear view mirror.

Quick update. The filter is continuing to remove the offending particles, but brushing of the build up on the bottom is still required. Last check there were only a few small deposits of it.
 

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