Pump Pot Has More Air Than Water

Hey folks,

Opened my pool this weekend and the water was really dirt (dark green, couldn't see bottom). It's looking pretty good now and is just a cloudy blue.

My only problem is that when I turn the pump on, it first works pretty well (although pressure is a bit high), but then after an hour or so, the amount of water being pulled from the skimmer significantly decreases. The amount coming out of the return lines also drops to very minimal. And finally the pump basket is only like 1/3 filled with water. I can see the water coming into the pump (because the pipe is higher than the water line at this point), and it's coming in at a much slower stream than initially.

If I "bump" the filter (it's a DE filter with a bump handle), and turn it back on things, look much better for an hour or less and then it happens again.

I tried changing the DE, but same thing.

My next guess is that I need to open the filter and clean it (didn't do that this season) and soak the filter fingers in filter cleaner.

What do you guys think? Could the problem just be a filter that needs to be thoroughly cleaned?

Thanks

Null, sorry about your opening to a swamp:(

The biggest problem is that the pathways through the DE coating are ~ the same size as algae, so they congest quickly when you're battling an algae bloom. The bumping helps for a while, but you should get used to ripping it apart on a regular basis until the algae is gone. At this point, just hitting it well with a good pressured garden hose should be enough, you can think about chemically cleaning the fingers after all the algae is out. Please remember to bleed the air and add the proper amount of DE ASAP once the pump primes - the fingers are unprotected until the DE is in!

I managed to compile some of the basics of DE filters over the winter and posted them here - if you need any help with the 'nuts and bolts' of ripping a Perflex filter apart and reassembling it - just ask and I'll either pull up the links or just rewrite whatever you need:)

Good luck taming the algae beast! I want to hear that you are swimming this weekend (or at least that the pool is ready to swim in)!

Thanks for the help Waste!

I used your DE thread to help me do a better job just changing the DE, rather than opening up the filter and really cleaning it (I'll never understand why the only cap they could come up with has 30 bolts). Now it's at least in much better shape. It still builds pressure after a couple of hours and needs a bump, but at least the water flows a lot better.

Current state of the pool is a very cloudy blue (can't see bottom in deep end, and can only just see it in shallow) with 95% of the algae gone. Been that way for a day or two now. But, I've shocked it everyday to raise the CL to at least 15 ppm and the next day it's all gone, so something is getting killed in there. The rest of my levels are good, so I don't think anything else is eating up the CL.

Thanks again for the help!