Is my pump too big?

[172pilot]

I have a brand new above ground, round 24' pool with a sand filter. The installers brought out a Haywood pump thats labeled at 2hp. I have it on an energy monitor switch, and I see that it takes about 830 watts to run, if that matters..

I've been having a bit of trouble with algae this week, and have been reading all I can, and one comment I read was that TOO much power can be bad for a sand filter. I'm wondering if this could be causing what I perceive as "too slow" to clear up cloudy water... One other potential variable is that the sand filter called for 1.5 bags of sand (I think the bags were 50# but I could be mis-remembering) and the installer only put in 1 bag. He said he has had good luck doing this, and that it allows more flow through the sand, because of less material to go through.. Made sense at the time, and I let him do it, but now I'm wondering if this 2hp motor is basically forcing all the algae through the sand and back into the pool...

SO... I'm wondering if I should consider a smaller pump, and/or opening the filter and putting the other half bag of sand in (I do still have it), but I'm also wondering about some comments I've seen about putting some DE into the sand filter.. If I do this, does the DE come back out at backwash time, or will it sit in there permanently? Would this be a good short term solution for me, to improve my filtering?

Thanks in advance.. I'm new to this site, but it seems AMAZING!

-Steve

 

[jblizzle]

While the pump might a little big (need more details on the model and just the HP is pretty meaningless), the pump size and filter do not result in algae. Algae is a chemical problem and you need to follow the ShockLevelAndMAINTAIN Process to kill it all, then the filter can remove the dead stuff.

Before I would consider a smaller pump, I would consider a larger filter (if it turns out you need to change equipment)

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