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.