Hello,
About a month ago when the temps warmed up, we had a big algae bloom. We shocked the pool and that killed the algae but all green sludge needed to be flushed. We backwashed the pool successfully but noticed that there was more green sludge so we decided to run the filter for another full day and then do another backwash before recharging the filter and starting over fresh for the season. As I was waiting for the backwash, I went over to the pool to get a water sample to check the Ph. Then I heard a pop, and the DE and green sludge started filling the pool from the 3 ports at the bottom of the pool (sorry, obviously I don't know the proper terminology for the equipment LOL) . Yikes. It was a big mess and we ran the filter for another day to recapture it all, but now the backwash just flows straight into the pool. We tried closing the little hatch on the bottom of the 2 skimmers and did another backwash, this time I saw lots of dirty water leaving the filter..but it pumped out through the waterfall.
As a side note, our backwash doesn't come out a separate outtake hose, it is plumbed to go somewhere. I have no idea where...we're on septic and I doubt they'd plumb it to dump DE into the septic tank, we've never seen any water coming out anywhere after backwashes, so we have no idea where it goes - we've had pool guys come out before and they are at a loss as well. There is a little sight glass on the pipe so we can see the water coming out of the filter, so we can see when it is dirty and when it starts to run clean.
Why is our DE pumping into the pool - does this indicate a clog or a break somewhere? If not, is this something that we can fix ourselves?
About a month ago when the temps warmed up, we had a big algae bloom. We shocked the pool and that killed the algae but all green sludge needed to be flushed. We backwashed the pool successfully but noticed that there was more green sludge so we decided to run the filter for another full day and then do another backwash before recharging the filter and starting over fresh for the season. As I was waiting for the backwash, I went over to the pool to get a water sample to check the Ph. Then I heard a pop, and the DE and green sludge started filling the pool from the 3 ports at the bottom of the pool (sorry, obviously I don't know the proper terminology for the equipment LOL) . Yikes. It was a big mess and we ran the filter for another day to recapture it all, but now the backwash just flows straight into the pool. We tried closing the little hatch on the bottom of the 2 skimmers and did another backwash, this time I saw lots of dirty water leaving the filter..but it pumped out through the waterfall.
As a side note, our backwash doesn't come out a separate outtake hose, it is plumbed to go somewhere. I have no idea where...we're on septic and I doubt they'd plumb it to dump DE into the septic tank, we've never seen any water coming out anywhere after backwashes, so we have no idea where it goes - we've had pool guys come out before and they are at a loss as well. There is a little sight glass on the pipe so we can see the water coming out of the filter, so we can see when it is dirty and when it starts to run clean.
Why is our DE pumping into the pool - does this indicate a clog or a break somewhere? If not, is this something that we can fix ourselves?