Trouble with Digital Nano Flow Sensor

[runawaylobster]

I am pretty desperate, I bought the digital Nano less than a year ago. Now it has a
message that says purify off flow sensor.

I cleaned out the little basket, that comes before the sensor, I also looked at the cell
and it was fine (no scaling). The return flow to the pool was strong.

so i took out the tri sensor and gently flushed the flow switch. It did have sand on it
It was really really hard to get the sensor out but i did it as indicated in the manual.

I re-assembled and started the system back up, It ran perfectly but horror of horrors
water is leaking from the connection between the sensor and the T. The T is NOT
cracked ...

after about 10 minutes the flow sensor stopped working again.. and i could just cry because i don't
know what do next, and how to stop the thing leaking.

I am working on renovating this house and i can't seem to get past the pool, it needs resurfacing
but I can't afford that, and i seem to be getting sand in the pool from the filter which started happening
after i refilled it with some expensive stuff that was supposed to be better than sand.

I just feel so tired and the pool problems never seem to go away.. I do pretty much everything at home
by myself and the pool is literally the thing that just refuses to be OK ..

please can you help...

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

You can probably stop the leak by removing the sensor, carefully cleaning the surfaces on both the sensor and T where they mate together, lightly lubricate those surfaces with some silicone based plumbers lubricant, and reinstall the sensor.

The filter problem is more complex. The media might be bad, or you may have damaged the laterals inside the filter when installing the media. What specific kind of media did you use?

 

[runawaylobster]

Welcome to TFP!

You can probably stop the leak by removing the sensor, carefully cleaning the surfaces on both the sensor and T where they mate together, lightly lubricate those surfaces with some silicone based plumbers lubricant, and reinstall the sensor.

The filter problem is more complex. The media might be bad, or you may have damaged the laterals inside the filter when installing the media. What specific kind of media did you use?

I used Zeobrite.

I will try what you say on the sensor and see if that works, thank you
i was wondering if it was OK to use the lubricant,

 

[JasonLion]

Zeo media has a habit of "crushing", breaking into smaller bits which are small enough to pass through the filter. It is important to backwash it for an extended period after it is first installed to get rid of all the bits that got crushed during the install. In some cases it will continue to crush each time you backwash, which indicates a bad batch of media.

Because of problems like these we do not recommend the use of Zeo media.

Note: it isn't possible to rule out the possibility that something is wrong with the laterals without a lot of work. You need to disassemble the filter and examine them visually to be sure.

 

[runawaylobster]

Zeo media has a habit of "crushing", breaking into smaller bits which are small enough to pass through the filter. It is important to backwash it for an extended period after it is first installed to get rid of all the bits that got crushed during the install. In some cases it will continue to crush each time you backwash, which indicates a bad batch of media.

Because of problems like these we do not recommend the use of Zeo media.

Note: it isn't possible to rule out the possibility that something is wrong with the laterals without a lot of work. You need to disassemble the filter and examine them visually to be sure.

Thank you so much for this explanation, this zeo problem seems like it might be what i have going on, because i have never had a nice pool since i put it in. Additionally, it could be exactly this that is the cause of the flow sensor getting tiny particles on it that are going through the little basket screen instead of being blocked. I guess i may have to dump the zeobrite anyway if it doesn't clear up..

i'm feeling better now i am armed with some more info on the possible problems.. i'm planning to attack it again later today.

 

[runawaylobster]

I think i am winning!! Got the flow sensor to work, and found that the O ring was pushed out of place so i stopped the leak. I backwashed the heck out of the filter and tentatively started refilling... seems ok so now it is 2/3 full,

now the challenge will be to see if i can keep it that way. It is an inground gunite pool and is VERY old but when i get the $$ together I will have it resurfaced.

I am cautiously feeling relieved...

 

[JasonLion]

Thats great!

 

[runawaylobster]

Thats great!

well thanks to you for the advice.. i have refilled the pool now and the flow sensor is doing just fine. But something is weird.. I tested the water for stabilizer (just with the pool strips) and i got a really high reading.. now how can this be if i just refilled the pool with new water? Is it possible that it was stuck in the filter? i ended up not having to empty the filter after all?

 

[ping]

New water has zero CYA, and if you refilled the entire pool then the test strips gave a bad reading. We consider most test strips worthless for the most part and recommend a high quality drop based test kit. See the link in my signature for test kits. You can also do a search for test kits and you will find that we recommend the TF-100 test kit most often.

 

[runawaylobster]

thank you!