Cloudy.. impatient

[chuck9997]

thanks for all your help... I am just so frustrated with this.. I don't have the time (or mechanical ability) to start tearing apart the filter. I am not sure about the size and model of the filter. But I can tell you I have had the same sand filter for about 6 years (or more).. and this pump for at least 3 years.. and it has always worked. No problems eventually cleaning the water and having a clear pool. Not saying there isn't a problem now.. but I think I can rule out a pump and/or filter size problem.

It does have a valve on top for backwash, rinse, filter, etc.

Pressure has been rising and falling (with backwashes to clear too much DE)

This pool has been too easy for years.. and has spoiled me. Right now.. I hate it.

[BigDave]

Don't hate it, it's just having a little tantrum.

It seems that alot of people are having more trouble than usual this year and Ben has speculated that some oversize pump / undersize filter combinations are pushing the dead algea through the filter grinding it into bits too small to filter. These filter / pump combos may have been fine for years but this year appears to be exceptional.

Adding a little DE is a good idea, it should help capture smaller particles. The gotcha is: adding a layer of DE on top of the sand bed in a small sand filter turns it into an extremely small DE filter.

With the DE in, your filter pressure should be rising.

Do you have the ability to take the multiport valve off the filter to inpect the sand bed?

Have you considered CarlD's suggesstion of adding a dose of polyquat 60%? It can act as a clarifier as well as an algecide - possibly making the cloudy more filterable.

Watermom's comment below is right on. If you use polyquat, don't add it until we've confirmed that you lose 1ppm or less overnight and have 0.5ppm CC. Then keep a close eye on your FC and be sure to keep it above 3ppm as the polyquat will drop your FC.

You'll get there. We'll help.

[Watermom]

The Polyquat will make your chlorine level plummet, by the way.

Is it just me, or is this thread going in circles?

[BigDave]

Watermom,
Thanks for the reminder about polyquat and chlorine depletion - I knew I forgot something.
I don't think this thread is going in circles, chuck9997's pool lost 1ppm FC and had 0ppm CC for the first time last night. I've advised him to maintain shock level for one more day and test overnight FC loss and CC again tonight.
Since it seems he's finally got the algae licked, we've started talking about clearing the cloudy water.

[Watermom]

OK. Upon rereading the entire thing again, I guess it isn't going in circles as much as I thought. It just seemed to me that we told him the same things more than once. But, I guess not as much as I remembered. (Not a criticism towards you, Chuck, by the way.)

Sometimes I think we have threads where the same information and directions are given over and over but by different people. Repeating something that someone else has already said is just a waste of time, unproductive, and makes threads even longer than is necessary. Long threads are hard to manage because they require more and more time to wade through and that does nothing but make it harder to help.

[chuck9997]

I usually don't post much here.. sorry for the long thread. I will try and work this out myself and keep posts to a minimum. Thanks everyone for the info.

[Watermom]

Please don't think i was criticizing you. I was not. We are happy to help you! You know that. I guess Watermom needs to open mouth and insert foot. I seem to have offended you and I certainly didn't mean to.