Problem With Filter Balls

[sonicsam]

Moderator comment: This post was separated out from this thread: Aqualoon Filter Balls

Unfortunately my experience has been very bad with this product or rather with an identical product sold by Steinbach in Europe.

When used in my filter they worked prior to the first backwash, then at the backwash I noticed very little dirt coming out of them and also not a lot of water coming out and when I returned the system to filter the pressure in the filter much higher. I opened the filter to check and found that a load of the filter balls has been jammed into the multi-port head of the filter, so tight I had to use pliers to remove them. Checking the filter body there was also actual damage to the internal divider in the filter which stopped the filter head from going back on resulting in an unusable 500€ filter.

Steinbach refused to accept responsibility saying my pool must have been "too dirty" to use their filter balls and that the dirt was what caused the over-pressure not their balls even though sand had not had a problem with even dirtier water just two weeks prior when I first started cleaning the pool. Yes the pool was not "sparkling clean" but certainly not so dirty (I had let me kids take a first swim in it only few days earlier).

Here is a photo of the damage. It looks to me like the pressure popped the head up allowing the internal divider channel to compress at a weak point maybe and then when the pump was turned off the head was forced back down onto the internal divider edge snapping it. But hey that is all just conjecture I don't really know, all I know if it wasn't there before I put the balls in the filter.



regards

Sam

 

[duraleigh]

Re: Aqualoon Filter Balls

and my pressure gauge didn't budge for the first six weeks or so,

Well, that means the filter didn't catch ANYTHING......that's not a very good testimonial in lieu of your self described very dirty conditions. Sorry.

 

[CJadamec]

Re: Aqualoon Filter Balls

I doubt your filter "sucks at backwashing." I'm sure if you had sand in there it would backwash just fine like it was designed to.

If you had to manually rinse all the filter material that claims it backwashes as easily as sand that sounds like a failure of the product to works as advertised. That is not a review that would make me want to try that product.

 

[Flying Tivo]

Re: Aqualoon Filter Balls

If you are looking for a better filter media than sand and behaves like sand, have a look at Zeolite.
They claim to filter 2-5 microns and sold by sunplay.

Felipe

 

[tim5055]

Re: Aqualoon Filter Balls

If you are looking for a better filter media than sand and behaves like sand, have a look at Zeolite.
They claim to filter 2-5 microns and sold by sunplay.

Felipe

So far we have found thru thousands of reports by owners here that the best thing to use in a sand filter is - sand. If for some reason you need to filter finer particles for some reason you can "Add DE to a Sand Filter"

 

[sonicsam]

I also tried Zeolite (Yes I am a sucker for gimmicks it seems) and although it worked okay just like sand (And didn't break my filter like the filter balls) I did not really notice any obvious improvement in water clarity or less need to backwash so in my experience it wasn't as advertised. Since my broken filter I have opted for move to a cartridge filter, mainly because I use an SWG and have a lot of water shortages here and the backwashing with a sand filter was not optimal.

 

[Flying Tivo]

I also tried Zeolite (Yes I am a sucker for gimmicks it seems) and although it worked okay just like sand (And didn't break my filter like the filter balls) I did not really notice any obvious improvement in water clarity or less need to backwash so in my experience it wasn't as advertised. Since my broken filter I have opted for move to a cartridge filter, mainly because I use an SWG and have a lot of water shortages here and the backwashing with a sand filter was not optimal.

Ofcourse you would not notice a difference since the human eye is not capable of that type of resolution. I would use Zeolite just for the gimmicks as yourself, worst case scenario
is that it would filter just as good as sand. About DE in sand filters i understand it completely, but would have to add after each backwash even if it was twice a year.

Felipe

 

[sonicsam]

Ofcourse you would not notice a difference since the human eye is not capable of that type of resolution. I would use Zeolite just for the gimmicks as yourself, worst case scenario
is that it would filter just as good as sand. About DE in sand filters i understand it completely, but would have to add after each backwash even if it was twice a year.

Felipe

What I meant was that it is advertised as making your pool water clearer and needing less backwashes but in reality I didn't find that it made any difference. It is however more expensive than sand (not hugely admittedly) and I suspect it is really just an easy way for pool shops to get you to replace the perfectly good sand you already have.

 

[duraleigh]

worst case scenario is that it would filter just as good as sand.

Not necessarily. This forum has received multiple complaints of zeo having "gumming up" problems.

While sand is not bulletproof, it has proven to be the least troublesome of any media in a sand filter.

 

[Flying Tivo]

Not necessarily. This forum has received multiple complaints of zeo having "gumming up" problems.

While sand is not bulletproof, it has proven to be the least troublesome of any media in a sand filter.

Ok Worst case scenario is i have to change to Sand+DE!

Felipe