This started out under the thread "The Long Road in Trying to Lower TA," but more underlying problems might exist with the equipment, so I decided to move to this section to stay topical.

Problems
• DE won't cling to the panels. As I pour DE into skimmer, I see it shooting out immediately out the returns. It then just falls to the pool floor, and the whole floor has a white coating, although it doesn't cloud the water. It ultimately ends up in my vacuum bag. I assumed that my CC would start climbing, but in fact it actually disappeared when the new partial panel was installed.
• DE pressure never rises beyond the 10 psi that it started off at when we installed the new panel, even though the DE is not coating the panels.
• Do all the panels need to be replaced? (Very last resort) The manifold has a small crack on the top of it, but it doesn't seem to affect it in my opinion. Maybe they simply need a chemical cleaning. I saw that Ted gave a nice explanation of this.
• We had been running the equipment around the clock since we opened it in early May, but since it has been clear and nicely balanced water in July, we attached the little timer pieces so that it runs about 12 hours every night. Every morning I find that the pump has lost its prime. What are the ways it can lose its prime? It never lost it when we ran it around the clock.

So, it looks like I have 2 problems here:
1) DE not coating panels
2) Pump losing its prime when on timer

Thank you,
Shannon