Pentair/Sta-Rite System 3: Air bleed filter problem

I have a Pentair/Sta-Rite System 3 cartridge filter. The filter is 1 year old. Last year it ran without issue. This summer, I took on the pool maintenance (away from the PB). I wanted to lower the pump speed to reduce energy use, as it was previously set to run at 2500 rpm. I also have a Pentair salt chlorine generator (CG), and the CG requires a minimum flow rate to keep it running. I recently cleaned the cartridge filter and was able to run the CG at around 1600 rpm, significantly cutting the energy usage at the circulator pump. However, after only a few days, I was getting an error from the CG, indicating flow rate was too low. I bumped it up to 1800 rpm. Okay again for a few days. I opened up the main filter again, and noticed that the air bleed screen/filter was clogged with a sand/sediment mix. I cleaned the air bleed screen, reassembled the filter, and the system (CG) is again okay to run with the pump at 1600 rpm (or even lower). For whatever reason now, the filter air bleed screen is now getting clogged less than 24 hours after cleaning. If I clean just the air bleed screen, the system will work again, but only for a short period of time. It's almost as if the air tube is pulling water through it, trapping debris in this small screen. Clearly (at least to me) this is not how the main pool filter should be working. I'm stumped as to what to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm sorry I cannot help you with this problem. Have you contacted the manufacturer to see if they can help?

Welcome to the Pool Forum, by the way!

All I can do is throw out some WAGs (wild-a**-guesses). You might try the low-tech, low-cost Skimmer Socks (or similar brand) to a really good pre-lim layer of filtration. They actually work amazingly well and are cheap and reusable for up to a month.
It's possible the cart is defective, but...I'm not a cart user, having sand instead.

Thanks Carl. I actually ordered some of those skimmer socks a couple of days ago, based on another recommendation. I appreciate it. It is really quite strange. Pentair insists that the air bleed screen has nothing to do with the flow issue, but experimentation would say otherwise. I also think that the flow switch on the Intellichlor is overly sensitive. It would be great if they could improve that….