Adding DE to sand filter

[woodyp]

Totally sick of cloudy pool with pollen, and yeah I'm sure it's pollen. Well aware of what folks here think of floc and I'm not interested in vac'ing that much water to waste anyhow. Question is, is it alright to add some DE through the skimmer with the basket out rather than havin to open up the sand filter to add it? 12k pool with 250 lb. filter. How much to add? Thanks!

 

[Richard320]

pool-school/add_de_to_a_sand_filter

 

[woodyp]

2 cups added with no filter pressure rise, but I just backwashed it yesterday. Gonna run that sucka' 24 hours and I'll report back tomorrow.

 

[solarboy]

I'm having exactly the same issue. I've already added the DE but it still seems to get through. I've been brushing and vaccing for days now and like yourself I don't want to lose any water. I added floc anyway to see if the larger flocced particle will stick in the filter better. I've been heavily using the search function tonight and it seems that a skimmer sock can be a great help, although I'm not sure how useful it is once the pollen has sunk to the bottom as it seems to sink back down very quickly after brushing so to get it into the skimmer could be hard.

 

[woodyp]

Reporting back only FOUR hours later! The 2 cups of DE didn't of itself cause any pressure filter increase. Checked it almost 4 hours later after brushing up the bottom (again) and it went up almost 8 points.! Pool is one whole heckuva lot clearer. Already backwashed and did a reallly good rinse cycle. Didn't want to let the pressure go from the middle of the caution zone into the red zone on the pressure. One Happy Camper here at this point! Anybody need 24 lbs. or so of DE??????????????? Kidding, but it was pretty cheap I thought at 25 lbs. for $23.95 and it won't go bad!

 

[newnick]

Be careful, I plugged my filter up temporarily with the DE. You don't want to add to much and keep an eye on the pressure. It filters pretty good though.