Bought a home with pool, so new owner of an existing pool. All seemed well for 1st week. Got water tested, absolutely 0 alkalinity and calcium hardness was high. 1st step was to raise alkalinity levels, pool store steered me wrong and on 2nd application my water got cloudy/pump pressure shot up. Backwashed, pressure lowered, water cleared. 1 day later pressure back up. Backwashed again and pressure lowered. Finished alkalinity and calcium treatments. After all this I started getting collections of a gritty tan/gray substance on pool floor ONLY after running pump. I would vacuum it up (a tiny amount would return to pool underneath return jet but I would suck that up at end) and all is good until running pump again , same substance on floor. So I bought a self contained vacuum. That collected the materials in a mesh filter. It was like a fine gritty sand, tan and gray, some sporadic white flakes. On top of all that, I developed a small drip where pipe from skimmer goes into filter housing (suction part). Called local pool company to fix leak, he advised to take filter out and clean. I took out filter, soaked overnight in a solution from local pool store, and hosed off. Recharged DE. Then I got a real fine grayish dust, just dissipated when trying to vacuum. Figured that was DE back in pool. Took filter out again, some screw heads busted off that hold tube sheet together. Ordered new ones, replaced all screws with stainless (old ones rusted). Put everything back together, recharged DE, ran pump last night and now I have same tannish/gray dust on pool floor. I'm thinking the original stuff was some of the chemicals I added as it now is more of a dust. After reading up it seems like maybe dead algae but why only after running pump? I did not run it for 3 days while waiting for replacement screws and nothing of the such collected on pool floor. Also, some rust stains on filter finger mesh, dunno if that has anything to do with it. Tube sheet, diaphragm gasket, and fingers seem in good shape
Small drip still exists after rethreading union pipe. Just ordered a new one and going to use liquid Teflon instead of the tape.
I am going to order a testing kit from here and will start SLAM process. Will post pics when I get home and provide water tests results from local store tomorrow.
In the meantime, is there something I can start with? Was gonna put in a skimmer sock to see if that collects any of the substance I'm seeing on pool floor, then next day put one around my pool jet. Bad ideas?
Small drip still exists after rethreading union pipe. Just ordered a new one and going to use liquid Teflon instead of the tape.
I am going to order a testing kit from here and will start SLAM process. Will post pics when I get home and provide water tests results from local store tomorrow.
In the meantime, is there something I can start with? Was gonna put in a skimmer sock to see if that collects any of the substance I'm seeing on pool floor, then next day put one around my pool jet. Bad ideas?