Astral Persius Pool filter

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sirgloves

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Aug 20, 2010
7
Hi everyone,

I'm new to posting here but have been following this forum for about a year (when I moved into my house with an above ground pool).

Basically here is my situation...

I have a 24' round above ground pool with what seems to be a Astral Persius 16" filter (looks very old and faded) with a Swim 'n Play multiport valve and 1Hp pump (new) . The filter takes 150lbs of sand which I replaced this May.
2 of my neighbors have the exact same setup as I do except they both have Hayward 160 or 180 filters. We all follow the same basic pool chemistry patterns and I have talked to them about how they care for their pools and they seem to spend less time running their filters and less time trying to keep them clean then I do. However, their pools have been crystal clear all season long and mine is constantly cloudy and/or contains a buildup of soot on the floor. I am constantly having to vacuum the pool on the "Waste" setting because the soot on the bottom runs right through the filter and back into the pool. The laterals do not seem to be cracked on visual inspection and there is no filter sand entering the pool.

My question is , do you think my Astral filter is just a horrible sand filter and upgrading to a Hayward similar to my neighbors would make a big difference? Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on Astral filters?
 
I'm pretty sure I used the right sand. I went to the local pool store which has a pretty good reputation the guy knew what my system was and he loaded 3 50lb bags in my trunk.

The only other thing I forgot to mention is that right after I changed my sand I noticed in the backwash there was some sand that looked to be filter sand... it doesn't look to be discharging anymore when I backwash but I wasn't sure if that was normal for the first few backwashes.

I have added DE to the filter after backwashing and the filter seems to hold onto the DE just fine however the water stays cloudy and the floor stays covered with soot.... I think I've tried everything short of replacing the filter which is why I'm wondering if it's a worthy investment and if I'd likely see an immediate difference.
 
Like I said, unless the multiport is bypassing stuff, changing the filter with another sand filter isn't going to help you. Unless you want to change to a cartridge or DE filter I'd start by rebuilding the multiport valve. However, If you just want a new filter get the largest one you can afford. A 250# or 300# would be better.
 
Thanks for the advice. I don't see much of a selection for replacing/rebuilding parts on the multiport valve since it's a very old and parts don't appear to be commonly stocked by my local pool store.

I think I'll may just bite the bullet and start over with a new 250 - 300# filter and multiport combo. It looks like 150 is on the very small end as far as sand filters go.

Thanks again
 
It is a 16" filter and is about 3 feet tall. The pump is 1HP but I know that it is new. When we bought the house the old owner had replaced the pump just before we moved. I'm not sure what the old motor was. Do you think it's possible that she had a pump that was too powerful for the filter installed? I really don't know what size pump goes with what size filter.
 
I had taken a sample to the pool store a few weeks back and they said "All looks good but your Alkalinity is a tiny bit low you can buy some baking soda and use that or buy alkalinity up but it's off by very little so it's not urgent" I haven't done either yet because he said it wouldn't cause my problem since my PH has been about 7.2-7.4 pretty consistently.

The CYA was around 40

Thats really all I remember off the top of my head but I'll try to dig out the sheet with the other test results and post them.

I have been shocking it about once every 2 weeks and using the test strips to verify the free chorline levels are good ... around 2-3 ppm

I have not used any clarifier since I've heard so many mixed things about it but I did use some Alegicide in June.
 
sirgloves said:
It is a 16" filter and is about 3 feet tall. The pump is 1HP but I know that it is new. When we bought the house the old owner had replaced the pump just before we moved. I'm not sure what the old motor was. Do you think it's possible that she had a pump that was too powerful for the filter installed? I really don't know what size pump goes with what size filter.
Click to expand...
If there are information plates on the pump and filter it would be useful to know the data, Pump qmin-qmax and flow rate for the filter. In my last post I said 24" or better 30" for a 1hp pump. It could be your pump is pushing water through the filter at such a rate it may just be like jet washing sand, it blows channels through it so you aren't really filtering that much the best filtering is the slowest filtering bearing in mind the need to turn over the water in a reasonable time. ideally 240 gallons/h to a max of 290 gallons/h (I may be rusty on the US gallons as I work in litres)
 

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I could barely read any of the information on the tank since it had faded so much but I'll give it another try. All I could figure out was that it was a Astral Perisus.

What you're saying makes sense though. Sometimes the water is coming out of the jet so hard that I can't put my hand in front of it and when I vacuum a lot of junk from the floor ends up spewing out of the jet.

So basically the only way resolve this particular issue would be to get a much larger filter or get a much smaller pump. Is that correct?

Thanks again
 
it's 24' round by 48" deep

I don't know much about filters but visually my filter looks tiny compared to my two neighbors filters and they have the exact same dimension pools. Based on that I would guess that my filter is undersized...
 
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