Back to my original problem of clogged DE filter. I finally went out to undo the 15 bolts in my DE filter, and hose down the fingers. The DE was sooooo gummed up - it was like putty. I don't know what got into the filter to make it that clogged up, but it took a hose spayer on full force to get it out. I only added shock (for conveinience factor), bleach, and ph+. The algae was still active when I started the filter, so maybe I should have really shocked before using the filter to filter out the dead stuff.

Now I can re-add DE the normal way by draining to waste periodically, and the pressure is back to my pool's normal. I can do the normal to clear up the pool - add bleach to shock levels, vacuum, retest, repeat. WHen the pool is clear, I'll open the filter up again and clean it again for the season.

It does filter much faster with the filter than with my Aquabot I can almost see the bottom of the deep end. We've gotten so much rain this week (about 7 inches here, but lots more in other parts of NE) it has been hard to get the pool work in.

-betty