Why is Polaris 280 just filling with water and no debris

[techman65]

Hi,

I have a relatively new Polaris 280 that I purchased last year. This season it seems whenever I check the bag for debris it is filled with water instead. I would think the bag would be too porous to just hold water but that doesn't seem to be the case. Have tried opening the zipper slightly but that makes no difference. Has anyone experienced this? I'm including a photo to show what I'm talking about. How can I get it to start sucking up debris?

 

[HermanTX]

The cleaner sucks up debris by causing a venturi effect coming through the jets in the center of the housing.
Take off the bag and see if the 2 jets are shooting upwards.
You can turn off the booster pump but run your main filter pump at high rpm because water still flows through the cleaner when booster pump is off. if there is no water shooting upwards then they are clogged. Then there is no "lift" to push the debris into the net bag.

 

[sktn77a]

Fine silt particles can "clog" the mesh and allow it to fill up with water. If this is the case, you need to rinse the silt off before putting the bag back on.

 

[1poolman1]

Hi,

I have a relatively new Polaris 280 that I purchased last year. This season it seems whenever I check the bag for debris it is filled with water instead. I would think the bag would be too porous to just hold water but that doesn't seem to be the case. Have tried opening the zipper slightly but that makes no difference. Has anyone experienced this? I'm including a photo to show what I'm talking about. How can I get it to start sucking up debris?View attachment 505485

The bag is ALWAYS filled with water. Do you mean air? The water in that pool seems to have a lot of algae. Algae will clog the bag with a slime that will then not allow air to escape. The whole Polaris can then float. There is debris in that bag.

 

[techman65]

Maybe a combination of water and air. I just know that previously the bag would get filled with debris and now it gets very little debris. I have tried swapping out the bag with a different one, but that makes no difference. And yes, I am fighting algae currently. Am in the midst of a SLAM and decided to try the Polaris since I can finally see the bottom of the pool in my shallow end.

 

[techman65]

The cleaner sucks up debris by causing a venturi effect coming through the jets in the center of the housing.
Take off the bag and see if the 2 jets are shooting upwards.
You can turn off the booster pump but run your main filter pump at high rpm because water still flows through the cleaner when booster pump is off. if there is no water shooting upwards then they are clogged. Then there is no "lift" to push the debris into the net bag.

Checked the jets when the booster pump was off and they were working fine.

 

[HermanTX]

Checked the jets when the booster pump was off and they were working fine.

So then it may be due that your bag is being clogged with algae. If the water cannot flow through the net bag, then it will limit the effectiveness of the "suction" on the bottom

 

[Saturn94]

It should be noted that these cleaners are not designed to clean a pool for spring cleaning, when dealing with an algae outbreak, or a heavy debris load. Doing so will likely shorten its lifespan. They are only designed to clean up normal day to day debris.

 

[techman65]

Good call on cleaning the bag. I used some mild detergent and that seems to have made the bag more porous. The Polaris is now able to pick up debris.