First time to have water stop moving through the system, need help!

[Brenda Paw]

I noticed earlier today that no water was moving through the skimmer basket and the PSI, which is normally 10, is 0. So I turned the pump off to go to work and I'm back home trying to trouble shoot in the waning daylight. I turned the handle to "backwash" and got much less flow than usual, the same with "waste" and "rinse." I took a garden hose that has very good water pressure with city water and directed flow down the poolside skimmer hole. I did this at first with the pump basket open and later tried with the basket closed and the pump on. The result is that the pump basket fill with water. I removed the pump basket with the pump off and felt what I thought is the impeller and it felt clear and turned for me. Could it be something with the DE filter? For what it's worth, the water in the pump basket looks cloudy like there may be DE in it. My spouse and I cleaned the DE filter in July and recharged it with DE. The PSI has been reading at 10 every day since then. I have not backwashed since that cleaning, but the PSI has not risen either.

 

[PoolStored]

Why is your skimmer dry? Is the pool water level below the skimmer opening? If so, you don't have enough water in your pool.

You water level needs to be up to the middle of the skimmer opening.

 

[Brenda Paw]

Yeah, I'm so embarrassed, filling it right now. That may be the whole problem. It's been a tough week. Yesterday morning after an over night storm I went out and there were tree limbs and sticks in the pool, pretty normal because this pool is built in a forest. But one limb was sticking straight up like a spear and sure enough it had pierced the vinyl. So I'm researching patches. This will be our first time patching it. I had thought the water level was holding, I was wrong. I thought it was good this morning but I was probably wrong then too. So I'm filling it now and researching patches. Thinking about using the Boxer 859 kit on Amazon. Spouse is so mad, we just had the board replaced last week because the salt cell stopped working. Then this. I hope it works after I fill it. I'll be out with a flashlight checking. But since we cleaned the DE filter last month, we are getting DE into the pool and I just noticed a layer of DE in the bottom of the pump basket when I was checking the impeller. The 3/4 HP Century motor was replaced 2 years ago.