I have a 24 foot above ground pool with a Hayward D.E. filter. When we opened the pool 5 days ago the water was a little green as it appeared we had a hole in our winter cover. Since then I can not get the filter to maintain proper pressure for more than a couple of hours as it's running high and the return jet to the pool is very low. I have taken the filter apart several times and washed and cleaned the fingers as well as soaking them one time for 24 hours in a mix of water and muratic acid. I have also back washed numerous times as well as bumped the filter handle often as needed. When I cleaned the fingers last night it was the worst as they were actually green and they hadn't been like that before but I thought maybe that had to do with the cleaning and then a short soak in dawn detergent followed by the 24 hour soak in muratic acid that maybe made the fingers preform better. At this point I don'y know what to do next as it starts out running great with the correct pressure showing on the gauge and a very powerful return jet to the pool but with 2 1/2 hours or so the pressure on the gauge is up and the water to the pool jet has decreased alot. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Help with filter issue
- Thread starter daveyboy43
- Start date
Welcome! 
Your problem is not with the filter but with the pool chemistry. No matter how frequently you clean your clogged up filter, it will continue to clog unless you kill the algae. Even if you remove half by filtration, the half that remains will double in a few hours and you will have made zero headway. Which sounds exactly like the case.
The solution is bleach. Not shock powder. Not algaecide. Not phosfree, which the manufacturer tells you not to add to a green pool, but pool stores ignore that to make the sale. Bleach. Lots of it. Why? All other forms of chlorine leave undesirable elements behind. The only thing better would be Chlorine gas, but that's really dangerous. More on chlorine.
How much bleach, more specifically than "lots"? That depends on the stabilizer level and how big your pool is.
How do you know what your stabilizer (CYA) level is? Testing. And not with test strips, nor by trusting the pool store. Their free tests aren't free. They'll sell you a mountain of expensive potions that seldom work as promised, and the testing is usually inaccurate, too. You need your own proper test kit.
While you're reading all that stuff and feeling like this
you might as well read the ABCs.
It also helps us if you fill out the signature.
Finally, some light reading. Start at the last page and work backwards, and just scroll through the pictures. If they could clear those messes, you should have no problem with yours. Just do what they did.
Your problem is not with the filter but with the pool chemistry. No matter how frequently you clean your clogged up filter, it will continue to clog unless you kill the algae. Even if you remove half by filtration, the half that remains will double in a few hours and you will have made zero headway. Which sounds exactly like the case.
The solution is bleach. Not shock powder. Not algaecide. Not phosfree, which the manufacturer tells you not to add to a green pool, but pool stores ignore that to make the sale. Bleach. Lots of it. Why? All other forms of chlorine leave undesirable elements behind. The only thing better would be Chlorine gas, but that's really dangerous. More on chlorine.
How much bleach, more specifically than "lots"? That depends on the stabilizer level and how big your pool is.
How do you know what your stabilizer (CYA) level is? Testing. And not with test strips, nor by trusting the pool store. Their free tests aren't free. They'll sell you a mountain of expensive potions that seldom work as promised, and the testing is usually inaccurate, too. You need your own proper test kit.
While you're reading all that stuff and feeling like this
you might as well read the ABCs.It also helps us if you fill out the signature.
Finally, some light reading. Start at the last page and work backwards, and just scroll through the pictures. If they could clear those messes, you should have no problem with yours. Just do what they did.
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