Can find cause of all the dirt/sand in the pool

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Originally Posted by nicole12

The fact that the debris only enters when the filter first turns on, does that rule out some things?

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I have the same problem with my sand filter. Although, with mine, you can see the cloud of dirt coming from the return when the pump turns on.

I have been watching this thread closely to see if I can learn anything new.

I plan of posting a new topic when I get back from vacation. See if I can post some pics of said cloud.

Cheers

Well tonight DH got into the pool with a garden hose and he sucked out as much of the debris as he could find. It's filter sand and some DE. It's as fine if not finer than kids play sand.

Check out this picture of it. I had the garden hose in the foot bucket to see if I could catch some of it. Not the greatest picture. The large straight item in the picture is a 1" blade of grass so you can see how fine this stuff is.

So for now our plan of action is to continue to use the garden hose to vacuum the debris out of the pool and see if it gets less and less. I have a new spider gasket on order so as soon as that comes in I'm going to replace it. Can't hurt. The old gasket did have some questionable spots to it. Looked cut up in some places.

Will frequent backwashing also get rid of some of this sand dust?



http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...12/dirt002.jpg

The reason why we used the garden hose is because our pool only has 7500 gallons and to vacuum to waste it would only take minutes to lose an inch. So it would have been quicker but we were trying to save water.

I would think the fine stuff is settling to the bottom of the filter, so backwashing will actually prolong it's stay inside the unit by pushing it up into teh mass of sand again only to have it work it's way back down.
Just keep doing what you're doing, it's probably from the new sand. It does sound like it's getting to be less though.

Nicole,

Glad you found out what the problem is. At least you know it is just sand and not algae or something worse. I wish I could be more help but I am not really familar with sand filters. Matt sound pretty knowledgable and hopefully he can help you until you get it corrected.

Joe

I am going to jump in on this discussion. I have an IG(38,000 gals) gunnite with the same problem. It also started after our pool company put in new sand last Spring(05) after a bad Cicada season. The pool guys admits it is sand, but says it is not from the filter because it is a different color(tan vs white). We did have a bad spider gasket and had to replace the whole top assembly on our filter this summer(not a hard job after we found the part). Our sediment may be somewhat different. It has a grit to it(sandy), but also is a little slimy. It also stains the pool if you do not get it out everyday, which sometimes just isn't possible. If I am understanding everybody correctly we should take some sand out of the filter and put it on some paper and see if the color matches the pool sand, bypass the filter in someway to see if that stops the accumulation and also check how much sand the 10 year olds from the pool company put in our filter last Spring and if necessary take some sand out of the filter if it is there is too much.

I'll get back to you.

I'm still waiting to receive my new spider gasket, hard to find for this filter. Ordered on July 17th, supposedly backordered until August 31st. Thinking I'll receive this just in time to close the pool. Problem still exists I just use panty hose over the return and the pool stays crystal clear. I will post back results when/if I get my new spider gasket.

Nicole, if you're going to get it THAT late, just verify it's the correct one, but don't install til next year, it will give you a bit more life. Hopefully next year you can let us know if it fixed the issues.

I received the new gasket today and I'm afraid it's not the right one. It fits exactly the pattern on the inside of the filter but doesn't fit the pattern on the yellow piece it attaches to. Will this gasket work? I've attached some pictures.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../gasket003.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../gasket001.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../gasket002.jpg

Nicole - that MAY have been your problem all along, that the old gasket was MISSING a web - therefore, sand can blow by.
If this gasket IS in fact for your filter, then maybe teh old gasket was not the right onr or a piece broke out - did you inspect the old to see if a piece may have been there before (little rough spots or something where it should be connected to the inner/outer rings)?

Edit - I just went to astral and checked into it, probably is the wrong part, don't know since I don't know hte exact filter you have......
Here's a link to look for yourself - it looks like the ones with the one less web also have a bigger center ring - just like yours.
Maybe you can find the right one and order it directly.
http://www.astralpoolcatalog.com/Hom...esidential.htm Choose filter from there...

If you have the Millenium or Cantabric top mounted 16/20/24" model (likely you do), then it's the wrong part, you need part number 19028R0204, what you got was for the side mount 30 or 36" Aster or Cantabric part number 07441R0002

Thank you so much for that information. Hopefully pool1.com can get me that spider gasket to replace the wrong one that I ordered.