Mkay, so, my pool is pretty cloudy right now after an I'll advised Ph Up addition. Lesson now learned regarding aeration but now I am stuck in this cycle of cloudy water, powder on bottom, vacuum, repeat. I'm vacuuming to waste but it's a slow process for such a large pool due to water loss. To boot, as the residue gets stirred up, I can see it spewing out of the returns. So, I replaced the MPV, not solely to deal with this but because of a crack near the pressure gauge. With that, I am pretty confident it's not the spider gasket. I did a deep cleaning while the mpv was off but still getting blow by. Tried to add DE but that seemed to blow by too. It's definitely not sand so I think the laterals are good. It's probably important to note that this filter has a long history before I owned it 3 years ago and I don't know much about that so the sand could have a sketchy background as far as maintenance and exposure to chemicals. I'm a little stuck as to where to go from here. I'm thinking I need to maybe clean the sand but I can't find any info on acid cleaning sand and I don't really trust pool stores.
Not sure what to do next... not catching fines
- Thread starter Jim Savage
- Start date
Sand is almost never the culprit and probably never needs replacing. Additionally, a working sand filter will filter out ANY VISIBLE particles.. There is an excellent article on this forum about deep cleaning sand filters. I will look for it and post the link if I can.
That would be my second step. The first step would be to post a complete set of test results for us to work with.
That would be my second step. The first step would be to post a complete set of test results for us to work with.
Deep Cleaning a Sand Filter
This post will walk you through the anatomy of a sand filter, and then provide a video at the end for how to deep clean your sand filter. The filter used in the photos and videos is a Hayward S180T top mount sand filter. The images are of a similar filter. Obviously not all filters are...
www.google.com
I have found, in most applications, after about 5 or 6 years you need to add a 50# bag of sand to the filter you have (S-244T?), especially if you have been fighting a cloudy pool and been doing a lot of backwashing. A small amount of sand is lost on each backwash and it adds up after a while.
Over the years I have installed at least 100 Hayward filters and always use unions just to make the adding of sand at a later date easier. Give it a try.
Alright, so I did another deep cleaning. I hadn't noticed how low the sand was and it's tough to tell with the water in there. I reached in and the filter was probably a little less than half full. To put things into context, after putting the new MPV on, pressure was about 5ish psi.
I got a lot more cloudy mess out during this deep cleaning but didn't notice any significant difference in the texture of the sand as I probed into it, IE; laterals here and there, generally soft and easy to penetrate. I capped the stand pipe and added 50# of HTH pool filter sand. After putting it all back into service, backwashed, rinsed, filter... pressure now just over 7. Seems the lack of sand was certainly evident. My old MPV read 9ish most of the time, but I didn't always trust it. The pool was starting to look better already with the vacuuming to waste but hopefully this will clear up the rest without so much wasted water! Thanks for the assistance!
I got a lot more cloudy mess out during this deep cleaning but didn't notice any significant difference in the texture of the sand as I probed into it, IE; laterals here and there, generally soft and easy to penetrate. I capped the stand pipe and added 50# of HTH pool filter sand. After putting it all back into service, backwashed, rinsed, filter... pressure now just over 7. Seems the lack of sand was certainly evident. My old MPV read 9ish most of the time, but I didn't always trust it. The pool was starting to look better already with the vacuuming to waste but hopefully this will clear up the rest without so much wasted water! Thanks for the assistance!
Glad its working for you.
According to sand-filter manufacturers, it is the top 1" of the sand bed that does the vast majority of the filtration. The important point is where that 1" is located. As sand is depleted, the bed gets lowered in the tank and poor filtration is the result. Adding some sand after about 5 years has always improved performance for my customers.
According to sand-filter manufacturers, it is the top 1" of the sand bed that does the vast majority of the filtration. The important point is where that 1" is located. As sand is depleted, the bed gets lowered in the tank and poor filtration is the result. Adding some sand after about 5 years has always improved performance for my customers.
1poolman1,
Nice post. I had never heard about the top one inch of sand but it certainly makes sense. Thanks!
Nice post. I had never heard about the top one inch of sand but it certainly makes sense. Thanks!