Replacing Sand with Glass Beads (Pearls)

[manjy]

Hi,

I want to replace the Sand in my Waterco Sand Filter with Glass Pearls / Beads as this is supposed to offer better filtration and a much longer service life.

Does anyone know if I need to replace the same weight in Glass or use more/less of the beads?

Thanks

 

[gtemkin]

One of the manufacturers of glass filter media recommends same weight.

By the way, I think you should be using crushed glass media, not glass beads. Glass beads are for metal finishing and won't work in filters. The glass you want is crushed glass specifically made for filters.

 

[Melt In The Sun]

In the collective experience of the forum, nothing works markedly better than plain old sand. If you want to catch some finer stuff that you think might be getting through the filter, you could always try adding a little DE.

 

[JasonLion]

We have had a number of people reporting problems with glass media. Sand is just about ideal and never needs to be changed.

 

[Kellychaison]

Sand in my filter has not been changed in 38 years and it works like a champ!

 

[gtemkin]

I also had a poor experience with glass but at the time I didn't know any better and the pool store I dealt with only sold glass. A little wiser now because of TFP, have completely ditched the pool store and I sourced #20 Filter sand from the local masonry supply and have no reason to ever change.

 

[toofast]

RUN RUN RUN from Glass Media in your sand filter! FAST AS YOU CAN!

 

[manjy]

Thanks for your replies!

I somehow didn't get notifications to this thread and missed all the replies.

In the meantime, I've gone ahead and changed the Sand with 0.8mm Glass Beads made for filtration after discussions with the people at Waterco. I used a generic brand of glass beads since Waterco isn't available in my area.

Hope I haven't made a huge mistake!
Guess I'll learn soon enough..

 

[toofast]

Thanks for your replies!

I somehow didn't get notifications to this thread and missed all the replies.

In the meantime, I've gone ahead and changed the Sand with 0.8mm Glass Beads made for filtration after discussions with the people at Waterco. I used a generic brand of glass beads since Waterco isn't available in my area.

Hope I haven't made a huge mistake!
Guess I'll learn soon enough..

In my opinion it all depends on what pumps and pressures you can run...if you have a 2 speed and run really low filter pressure I bet this will not work.

 

[manjy]

In my opinion it all depends on what pumps and pressures you can run...if you have a 2 speed and run really low filter pressure I bet this will not work.

Hi, I have a single speed 2.5HP Waterco Suptauf Pump. This one to be exact:
http://www.waterco.com.au/component...l-&-spa-products/pumps/domestic-pumps/supatuf.

The working pressure was about 10 PSI.

I use borewell water which always turns reddish brown after the addition of Chlorine. It normally used to take 2-3 days of filtering and vacuuming to get rid of the Iron that had suspended out. This time I ran the filter for about 12 hours, added some alum to the overflow drain and used my robot once and the pool was sparkling clear. No idea if it was the Glass Beads, the reduced water volume (pool renovated recently and volume reduced by about 5000 gal.) or just pure luck! I did a backwash and the water that came out was a deep red.

My PH was a bit high (7.8) so I haven't added the Borax yet. This will be the first time I'm adding Borax, which I will do tonight after getting the PH down a bit.