Help - major algae now cloudy pool

[14me2]

To an extent, old sand is good, but take it from experience... I have wasted a lot of time and money trying to let it filter itself, as my parents never changed their sand that Iknow of. I know this is probably untrue, but we have had our pool for 5 years. We used the same sand forever, then all of a sudden we couldn't get the pool to clear. It was a beautiful color, but not sprakling clear... we tried everything, finally we changed the sand. Clear in 2 days!! Fast forward to last year, We had not opened the pool the previous summer... due to a sickness. We had everything right, but the water was grey. We tried floc, and drop out and super blue and tons fo others miracle things, but the cheapest and fastest of them all was jsut some good ol fashioned sand. It looked better over night. And the price of that sand was jsut a bit more than the bottle of drop out. So, I mean what's the worst thing that could happen.

ETA: After a while there will be little channels of sand in your filter, this is not doing anything to filter, (it looks like ants live in there) but allowing it to make it right back into the pool. If you treat your sand at the beginning and end of season, then yes your sand will last longer, but most people don't and relaly it is just as easy to go ahead and change it yearly. Sand will harden and the the water will have to flow somewhere, so it makes the channels....

[ivyleager]

After a while there will be little channels of sand in your filter, this is not doing anything to filter, (it looks like ants live in there) but allowing it to make it right back into the pool. If you treat your sand at the beginning and end of season, then yes your sand will last longer, but most people don't and relaly it is just as easy to go ahead and change it yearly. Sand will harden and the the water will have to flow somewhere, so it makes the channels....

I've used the rinse option for this....stirs up the sand....then resettles in filter option. Do you have this option on your sand filter? This will be my 3rd season w/ pool and I think filter is doing a good job. I did treat sand following 1st season at closing/draining of pipes, but not this year as I kept everything online and cycled pump when temps were below freezing.

CaryB

[sryan]

CarlD...
I've never seen a "skimmer sock"...where do you find them? For the past few years I've been vacuuming almost everyday due to the fine silt that settles at the bottom of my AG pool. I brush, vacuum, clean/backwash my filter but the silt will settle about an hour after people are done swimming. I changed from sand to Zeolite since I was told that it would filter out finer particles...no help to me!

If you have any other suggestions please send them my way!!

Thanks,
SRyan