Background
1st and most importantly, thanks to everyone that is on here - I've learned so much from this forum. I've been doing TFP for 3 years and it has been, well, trouble free.
2nd....Although I've been doing the chemical balance thing for so long, today was the first day I tried to disassemble my DE filter to clean it out. My filter is nearly identical to the one on the "how to clean your filter" example. Oh man was it nasty. (and thanks to whomever wrote the tutorial - I couldn't have gotten as far as I did without that!). So, I got the filter open and while the fins were still in the filter I cleaned out as much as I could with the hose based on the advice that it would be heavy with all the DE in there. Reemphasizing it was nasty. I undid the bolts and tried to get off the top manifold off but I couldn't get it to budge. I could wiggle the manifold off of the fins but not off of the stand pipe. So, question #1 - any tips to getting the upper manifold off? (bear in mind I am a 5' tall woman so upper body strength is not my forte). By this time, the filter is actually not nasty any more because I spent maybe an hour cleaning it. Since I couldn't get the filters to budge and my kids were due home from school any minute, I decided to put the thing back together. I had done a visual inspection of the filters and what I could see looked good. So, all done but....
I've noticed that when I reload the filter with DE (not just this time - this happens every time I've back-washed it as well), my hot tub which has the closest outlet to the pump, looks like a cup of milk or so has spilled in the hot tub. Not super cloudy but obviously some DE is making its way into the hot tub. The pool isn't noticeably impacted (but it is a bigger body of water) and the hot tub will clear itself up in time. I just checked and it is clear - I added the DE an hour and a half ago. Anyway, is that normal or does it mean one of my filters has a nick?
Again - any suggestions on getting the manifold disconnected from the stand pipe (without breaking it)?
Thanks!!!
1st and most importantly, thanks to everyone that is on here - I've learned so much from this forum. I've been doing TFP for 3 years and it has been, well, trouble free.
2nd....Although I've been doing the chemical balance thing for so long, today was the first day I tried to disassemble my DE filter to clean it out. My filter is nearly identical to the one on the "how to clean your filter" example. Oh man was it nasty. (and thanks to whomever wrote the tutorial - I couldn't have gotten as far as I did without that!). So, I got the filter open and while the fins were still in the filter I cleaned out as much as I could with the hose based on the advice that it would be heavy with all the DE in there. Reemphasizing it was nasty. I undid the bolts and tried to get off the top manifold off but I couldn't get it to budge. I could wiggle the manifold off of the fins but not off of the stand pipe. So, question #1 - any tips to getting the upper manifold off? (bear in mind I am a 5' tall woman so upper body strength is not my forte). By this time, the filter is actually not nasty any more because I spent maybe an hour cleaning it. Since I couldn't get the filters to budge and my kids were due home from school any minute, I decided to put the thing back together. I had done a visual inspection of the filters and what I could see looked good. So, all done but....
I've noticed that when I reload the filter with DE (not just this time - this happens every time I've back-washed it as well), my hot tub which has the closest outlet to the pump, looks like a cup of milk or so has spilled in the hot tub. Not super cloudy but obviously some DE is making its way into the hot tub. The pool isn't noticeably impacted (but it is a bigger body of water) and the hot tub will clear itself up in time. I just checked and it is clear - I added the DE an hour and a half ago. Anyway, is that normal or does it mean one of my filters has a nick?
Again - any suggestions on getting the manifold disconnected from the stand pipe (without breaking it)?
Thanks!!!