Sand on Pool Bottom... Help

[Suziqzer]

Our sand filter wasn't cleaning the pool as well as it used to and would spit a puff of dirty water into the pool anytime we stopped and started the pump, so we cleaned the sand today and inspected the laterals while we were at it.

The sand was dirty with some pockets of debris and yuck, but everything looked ok.

After putting everything back together and running a long rinse cycle, the filter purged a bunch of sand into the pool. I attempted to use our manual vacuum and it would pick up some sand, but very little.

We seem to be getting sand back into the pool through the return when I'm trying to vacuum the sand, and when I'm not. We have a swimpro filter with laterals that tilt and I'm guessing that one of them didn't get seated correctly and is letting sand by, that or we cracked a lateral

Either way, I've got to get the sand off the bottom of the pool somehow and my vacuum isn't working well. Is it safe to take the vacuum off and just go down directly with the hose to get the sand? Any better ideas?

 

[Bama Rambler]

You could vac to waste if you have a multiport valve.
You can remove the vac head if it doesn't suck too hard to the floor.

 

[Suziqzer]

Thanks for the reply Bama... it wasn't working well with the vacuum head on. Now Hubby is concerned because sand is mucking up the valves and making them hard to turn. Not sure what we are going to do .. He wants to get in and try to scoop out the majority of the sand. I told him.. "Good Luck!" I'm guessing on of us will be getting in and using the end of the vacuum hose at the bottom of the pool as soon as we get the filter problem fixed.

After further inspection late last night and taking the filter apart again. It appears that the hinges and clips working the fingers are failing and when Hubby pulled up the whole finger system, one of the fingers was seperate... Hince the sand in the pool. He looked at it closer to find that several of them were terribly worn and/or cracked.

While he's trying all of the local place to find a replacement, with no luck as of yet, one of his co-workers is going on and on about Zeosand saying he was having trouble with his filter last year and replaced his sand with that and he thinks it is amazing. So hubby is wondering about trying it. I told him there are conflicting reviews about the zeosand, and how does his co-worker know that the zeo is so great when he was having trouble with his filter to begin with. ?? Maybe his sand was channeling as was ours... Our sand was doing an awesome job until late last fall when we started getting small sediment on the bottom all of the time... blamed it on pollen but, started again when we opened the pool a few weeks ago.

 

[JasonLion]

We don't recommend Zeo. When it works it works wonderfully, but too high a percentage of people have significant problems for it to be recommendable. Channeling issues are the same with or sand or zeo.

 

[Suziqzer]

Thanks Jason... I was leaning that way, but getting pressure from Hubby to try something new and "improved"

 

[linen]

You already have experience when your filter worked fine. Obviously, zeo is not going to fix the lateral issue and it will also not fix a propensity to channel. My guess is the co-worker had other troubles (chemistry etc.) that the zeo itself did not magically fix.