I hope this is an OK place to post this question. I'm not quite sure where it best fits.
Last year, a couple of months after I became a pool owner, I had a service tech come out to look at my DE filter because I was having a lot of trouble with algae and debris in the pool. He discovered that the filter hadn't been cleaned in a very long time and was just full of DE. He demonstrated by scooping out handfuls of it and letting it fall on the rocks around our pool equipment, and in the process of getting the filter out of the housing to take it elsewhere to hose it down, got even more of the stuff on the ground there. I thought the DE might wash away down between the rocks in the rain but instead it just got more compacted amongst/between the rocks. Does anyone have any suggestions for cleaning this up? Am I going to need to just break it up and shovel it all out, rocks and all, and put new rocks in? Hosing it off doesn't seem to help.
Last year, a couple of months after I became a pool owner, I had a service tech come out to look at my DE filter because I was having a lot of trouble with algae and debris in the pool. He discovered that the filter hadn't been cleaned in a very long time and was just full of DE. He demonstrated by scooping out handfuls of it and letting it fall on the rocks around our pool equipment, and in the process of getting the filter out of the housing to take it elsewhere to hose it down, got even more of the stuff on the ground there. I thought the DE might wash away down between the rocks in the rain but instead it just got more compacted amongst/between the rocks. Does anyone have any suggestions for cleaning this up? Am I going to need to just break it up and shovel it all out, rocks and all, and put new rocks in? Hosing it off doesn't seem to help.