IC40 - Low flow light troubleshooting. (SOLVED)

Jun 29, 2011
183
Texas
Pulling off our solar blanket yesterday, I was shocked to find a green pool! I've never had the water turn green, but quickly found my low flow light on. If it was off all week, combined with warm weather and the solar blanket, it's amazing how fast it happened.

I bumped up the flow, and at first no change. I had to bump it almost to max to get the flow light to go green.

I pulled the cell and checked for calcium build up (which is typical) but looked really good with only very small amount. Probably 5-10% of what I find when I usually get low flow and clean it.

Cell lifetime hours check is showing 60%.

I pulled the pump basket and no obstructions and fairly clean.

I checked the skimmer basket and all good, with suction.

I then backwashed the DE filter. One thing odd there was the water was almost clean flowing out. Usually it has the grey cloudy look for the first few minutes, but this was clear from the start.

After DE backwash, the flow light went green at the normal lower end of pump range. However it went red after about 5 min and I had to bump the pump up to about 50% to get it back to green. I switched the intake line between the pool and spa, but no change. So to me, that eliminates the intake lines and my flow issue must be between the pump and SWG, or SWG and return lines. Both return lines seem to have even amount of flow coming out.

As of this morning, the pump basket won't fill completely even on full prime.

I hate opening and reassembling the de filter. Anything else I should check before pulling it apart? I believe I've eliminated the SWG itself, but given it's the indicator that started this I wanted to be sure.
 
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Re: IC40 - Low flow light troubleshooting

Any information on pressure? At your normal pump speed what is your normal operating pressure and what is it now?
 
Re: IC40 - Low flow light troubleshooting

The filter should be back-washed once your pressure rises 20% above normal operating. Since you say you back-washed and still have elevated pressure, I would suspect something wrong with the internals of the filter. Others in the forum that have a DE filter will hopefully chime in.

Take care.
 
It was the DE filter. When I tried to open it, I could not budge the cover. I opened the bottom drain plug and no water was coming out at first, and then only a small amount. It was just air rushing in. After5 min of listening to air hiss into the filter, I was able to pop the top off easily. I must have added too much DE last year because it was caked inside and green from all the alge.

After cleaning the filter, I cleaned the bottom and believe I found the root cause. Our pool is next to the house so when it does rain in Southern California, we get little fine pebbles off the shingles run into the pool. The bottom of the filter was gummed up with all of these fine pebbles.

After putting everything back together, pump is running at virtually no power and flow light is solid green.
 
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