DE in sand filter, will it ever "finish"?

Aug 9, 2015
10
Atlanta, GA
Hi, all. I've been trying out putting DE in my sand filter, and am surprised at what I'm experiencing.

With no DE, the psi of my filter rises extremely slowly, like months between backwashes. The clean psi is around 8 by the way. But yesterday I started adding DE in the way advised on this site. The first time, the psi rose to 15 over the course of an hour. Ok, the articles said it may rise quickly. I backwash and go with some DE again, back up to 15 after an hour. Interesting. Well, I have now repeated this cycle maybe 7 times, and am seeing the same result each time.

I would have thought that eventually I'd have cleared all the fine stuff out, and the pressure rise would slow considerably, but maybe this is not the case. Or, do I just have an abnormally large amount of fine particles in my water, and it's just going to take a long time to get it all out? If this is the case, do sand filters just suck, or might something be wrong with mine that is causing it to not work well?

I'd love to hear the experience of others with DE in sand, and how long it took them to finish cleaning out all the fine stuff, assuming that ever happens.
 
Sand filters are just fine, but when you add DE they do tend to capture finer material that you might not otherwise visibly see. Usually those who add DE to sand do it only after passing an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test and seem to have a water clarity issue (i.e. dead algae). So if you are continually struggling with cloudy water, it may be time for an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test. That or look into deep cleaning the sand if it's been a while.
 
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