What is the purpose in putting DE in the skimmer to coat the grids. What purpose does DE serve? I would think the stuff would get caught by the grids, not the DE.
The grids are quite coarse compared to the debris you want to catch. DE fits together very tightly with many sharp points and narrow channels, so it catches very fine particles which the grids alone could never come close to catching. Also, running without any DE will destroy the grids in a couple of weeks (if not much sooner).
Imagine a standard kitchen sponge, but reduced in size to a speck of dust. That's DE. It coats the grids without going through, and provides microscopic passages for the water to go through but which catch tiny particles. The DE is the filter, the grids are just there to hold it.
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