Plumping Question - Return Liines

[KSpoolguy]

So, I just got my boric acid in the mail. All of my chemicals and readings are great! I just lowered my PH to 7.2, in order to lower my TA. My TA was 130 and was trying to get it down closer to 100 before adding the boric acid.

Here's my problem. I have two lines (skimmer and main drain) coming into the pump and then obviously one line coming from pump into filter. This is where it gets dicey. Coming out of the filter, I have one line that breaks off into two lines. One of the lines runs the waterfall and the other line is for the polaris and two returns. I am running my waterfall to help aerate the water to bring my PH back up before adding the boric acid. However, I have to close the return line and keep the waterfall line open to ensure that the waterfall goes into the pool. If I have both lines open, the flow to the waterfall is not strong enough. That being said, the line for the polaris breaks off (in a much smaller pvc pipe) to the booster pump before the valve to shut off the returns (the line coming from the booster pump is the normal size). So when I close the return valve and keep the waterfall vale open, there is still some water going through the line to the polaris and the booster pump, which for some reason creates a semi-loud squeaking noise.

Should the line to the polaris break off after the valve? That way when I turn off the return lines, it also stops water from flowing to the polaris.

If so, until I get it changed, is that noise indicative of something damaging the booster pump for the polaris? Should I be concerned in the near term?

Sorry for all of the recent questions. I truly appreciate this site and will be making a donation, as I feel that this site is priceless!

Also, I can add a picture of the configuration if my explanation was not detailed enough.

 

[mas985]

I would put a valve right before the Polaris pump so you can shut off the flow to it if you want no matter what configuration you set. But the noise is probably just the water being forced through the stationary impeller so it should cause any problem other than be an annoyance.

 

[KSpoolguy]

Would it be possible to do that, in addition, to somehow tying the booster pump to the waterfall as well. That way could switch the booster pump between the waterfall and polaris. It would probably require a valve on both ends of the boost pump and there may not be enough room to do it. Also, maybe waterfalls shouldn't have booster pumps.

It would also be kind of tricky, I would think, to have two lines from two separate lines coming into the booster pump.

I suppose I can just have one of our local pool companies come out and look at it and see what kind of configuration I can set up.

It is really weird how it is set up. To add to it, I've noticed that the waterfall valve is extremely hard to turn, whereas the return valve is not (though still tough). The builder told me I didn't have to turn off the pump to switch those valves (as long as I had one valve open at all times). Though, I've tried it with the pump off and on and don't notice any different in difficulty.