I've had my pump down since last week, and it's helped confirm my suspicion that my sand filter is blowing sand back into the pool (I have to vacuum daily to keep the floor of the pool spotless.) I've read the sticky thread about sand blowing back into your pool, and I've cleaned out my filter so I can attempt to check the hub & laterals.

I have an old Pac-Fab Triton TR60 (from 1989!), and it's all one piece of fiberglass that won't really allow me to get down in there very well with wrenches to take out the pipe where the diffuser attaches to. Is there a special tool used to do that? I just have Channel Locks for most of the work I do, but the angle of the filter "dome" is making it hard to get my CL's in there.

I've gotten the laterals off, and there's definitely sand trapped between the slits of all of them, and one broke while taking them off. I don't see any cracks in the laterals, but I can definitely see sand inside all of the laterals (despite using a hose to clean out the filter. Could the sand trapped between the slits in the laterals be from using the wrong kind of sand?