Fliter Sand, HTS vs. Zeobrite??

Thank you everyone for all the good information. I think I figured out what IMHO is, in my humble opioion? Is that right? I am not used to all the abbrev., but figuring them out, smile! I should ask our deaf daughter she texts all the time. Wow, I can't believe the sand last that long!! I know when we first got our pool the sand wasn't changed for 6-7 years, and when we spent oddles of money on chemicals, and water was still cloudy, they said it was the sand. Than it was clean the fliter sand. Of course that was with Baq. We were instructed to do a filter clean, filter aid, floc it, man!! Now you are saying don't clean the filter with any cleaners? Hmm! Interesting! Makes sense though if you have to clean it, flush it out, when you add chemicals it would tend to just gum it up.!

Does anyone know where you can get cheaper filter sand. $10 for 50 lb. is the cheapest in our area. I have a 300 lb tank too, which will be 60 plus tax.

That's about the going price in my area for filter sand. If you figure that the sand is good for 10 years (and many will say it lasts longer than that) it's only $6 a year.

BTW (by the way) I work with Deaf kids and they don't necessarily use the same TLAs (three letter acronyms, which often have more than three letters!) when they text. The ones whose native language is ASL tend to use ones that are a bit different than the HOH (Hard of hearing) or those that had oral instruction in English.

In my area it can fluctuate wildly. I've bought it for $12/$13 a bag then seen it the next season for $5 or $6 a bag--50# bags.

I shouldn't laugh because a number of members of my family have hearing loss (my brother wears dual hearing aids) and I have a deaf cousin, and my own hearing could be better (with a lot of ambient noise I can no distinguish words of someone speaking very well)--but when you mentioned HOH, all I could think of was Garrett Morris on the original SNL with "English for the Hard of Hearing"--and the "Loud Family" skits (after the PBS series--the first reality show) and I LOL'd!

There is a sticky at the top of this forum about adding DE to a sand filter. Only thing Carl forgot to mention you should mix the DE in a couple gallons of water then pour the mix in the skimmer slowly. With a 300# filter you can probably start at 1/2 cup. Also, don't inhale the dust. On the sand, mine is almost 13 years old and the only thing I should do is add some. I'm low and I know it and probably can throw another bag or so in the filter which I'll do next spring. You do lose a little each time you backwash. Not much but after 13 years it adds up. Also, if you add DE and are vacuuming dust or crud from the bottom of the pool, watch the pressure. Tends to climb and the flow may drop fast.
Enjoy the pool.
Al

My hypothesis is that sand in your filter is millions of years old and therefore should last millions of years more!:D

All you have to do is maintain your pool properly for the next million years (which I'm working on--8 down, 999,992 to go! :rolleyes: )

I realize I'm late getting in on this thread--didn't get off work til late last night and was too tired to even turn on the computer--but I did change to zeolite after I started having problems with my sand filter a couple of years ago. I like it--seems to me like it does a little better job of "polishing" the water than the sand did. It is more expensive per bag, but you only use half the amount of zeolite compared to the amount of sand. So--for what it's worth, I've been very pleased and don't plan to go back to sand.

Caveat: That's as long as you start the filter up in backwash mode after the original addition of the zeolite to wash all the dust off before filtering your pool with it--if you don't do that, it makes a HUGE mess!!

Janet

Interesting, that you work with deaf students. Wondering what area you are in? Our daughter is 33 now, raised signing exact English and ASL later. She was mostly in hearing world until later in life and immersed herself into the deaf world. Went to MSSD at Gallaudet for part of 8th grade in D.C. Lisa signs and talks. She has a Severe to Profound loss, but does amazing. Her son has a mild to moderate and being a teenager refuses to wear his aid any more. Just wondering how much contact you have with deaf students, I am always interested as deafness is a big part of my life and world, since Lisa being diagnosed at 22 months. I know late, even after me questioning since 6 months old!

just my 3 cents
i switched over my hayward sand filter last year to100lbs of zeobrite, hoping for spectular results. Reading it was used in aquariums and so on i sprung for it hoping to take some of the pain out of my pool being dirty and taking too long to clear up.(before forums reopened, now ive learned much more).
I was also more interested in the claims of less backwashing since i was doing it 2 or 3 times a week, in the begining since my pool was full of algae at opening.

The results were far from spectular. It was the 2nd year of having my house with the pool so i dont really know too much on how the filter ran with regular sand. The zeobrite did not clear the water up or filter out the water any better than how i remenbered the sand. I also opened this year to a green pool and once again, no spectular clearing of the water, other than me pumping up the Fc and applying popp over several weeks.
I would not recommenend the zeobrite, and wish i had gone with filter sand.

I backwash approx every 2 weeks, currently its been 15 days since i backwashed, not sure if thats good/bad or avg for sand filters.
I also always try to run skimmer socks.

Thanks everyone for info. Janet, I will keep that in mind. I know the sales lady online yesterday was telling me about how Zeobrite worked, and it sounded convincing, but was not sure? I wanted to hear from others on here. I will take all of this into consideration. I was wondering on my tank it says to put I think half way full of water, than add sand. do you do that with the Zeo? Does it swell up beings you use half as much as sand, or doesn't that matter as far as cleaning. I am trying to grasp the concept and how it works?

Carl, I don't think I want to be around a million years! LOL, but that is good to know! Smile! Still am thrilled to death that we don't have to change the stinking stuff EVERY year, like we had to the last 2 years with Baq!!

So, I guess forget about being so cheap and pricing sand and just go and get it if that is what I am going to use, because it lasts really long once you put it in. The reason I am pricing is because this is the third year in a row to replace it. Oh well!:)