DE leaking into the pool -- Bad pressure relief valve

[Mr. Blue]

So on Sunday, I realized that my manual pressure relief valve had a crack in it. At the time, all of the pool stores near me were closed, so there wan't anything I could do about it. A tiny bit of water would seep out of the crack, and if I turned the pump off, DE would start to leak out of the skimmer line. I left the pump running overnight to prevent this from happening.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. I purchased a replacement valve and went to put it on. I turned the pump off, turned the muti-valve to the "Closed" position, and proceeded to take off the bad pressure relief valve. As I did this, DE started coming out of the jets in the pool. After replacing the pressure relief valve, I started the pump and the DE stopped leaking. I did notice that for a few hours after, the Polaris was shooting out DE as it ran around the pool (I guess some of the DE shot into that line as well). I let the pump run overnight again to try and suck the DE back into the filter, as my pool was relatively cloudy after this. The pool is clear of this morning.

My questions are:

Is this normal?
Do I need to add more DE?
Is there anything I need to be concerned with (Polaris or otherwise)?

 

[Bama Rambler]

I wouldn't call it normal, but it's common for this situation. Since the filter was leaking in air when the pump was off it was allowing water to flow backward through the filter to the pool through the suction side of the pump and therefore washing a little DE back into the pool. I would suck it up with a manual vacuum and not worry about it.

 

[Mr. Blue]

Thanks for the reply, but wouldn't DE coming out of the jets mean that the water was coming through the return lines?

 

[Bama Rambler]

It's possible that when you were working on the valve some DE got into the return side and was expelled when you started the pump back up. Once you vacuum it up, if it doesn't keep happening I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[Mr. Blue]

Ah, ok. I see.

I let the Polaris stir it up last night and the pool was clear this morning. I assume that all of the DE was sucked into the skimmer and is now happily reunited with the filter.