r/swimmingpools

i'm not an expert, just an above ground owner who spent way too long confused by the multiport valve on my sand filter. figured i'd write down what i wish someone had told me starting out, since new owners ask this constantly.

big rule first: always shut the pump off before you turn the handle. switching under pressure is how you wreck the seal inside. learned that the expensive way.

what each position actually does in plain english:

• filter: normal mode, lives here 95% of the time.
• backwash: reverses flow to flush gunk out of the sand. run it til the sight glass goes clear, usually a couple minutes.
• rinse: run this 30 seconds right after backwash, it settles the sand bed so you don't blast dirty water back into the pool.
• waste: sends water straight out, bypassing the filter. great for vacuuming algae or dropping the water level.
• recirculate: pump runs but skips the sand, handy when you're adding chemicals.
• closed: everything shut, only for service.

the one that gets people is skipping rinse after backwash. don't, or your first minute back on filter dumps dirty water in. the positions are the same on any 6 way valve regardless of brand, these aren't specific to mine.

fwiw i'm running an aquastrong sand filter setup, picked it mostly for the built in timer so the pump cycles on its own and i don't forget to run it. but the valve positions above apply to any multiport, doesn't matter what's on your pad.

anything i got wrong or would add?

20×40 inground pool here. My old robot would die halfway through every single time. Had to charge it and run it all over again, and still never got the whole thing clean. Drove me nuts. Grabbed a Scuba v3 about a month ago and honestly kind of annoyed I waited. Battery handles the full pool without issue, which was my main concern. What really surprised me was how it cleans though. Goes for leaves and heavy debris first, then works its way around the rest methodically. Old one just bounced around randomly and half the pool never got touched. On a pool this size you notice immediately when something is not pulling its weight. What are you guys running on bigger pools? Does yours actually handle the full cleanup or did I just upgrade from garbage?

I purchased an 8’ pink Intex metal frame pool from Amazon, and one section of the the liner between two horizontal rail sleeves is approximately 4 inches too short. This section is located right at a seam in the liner, so it’s fairly obvious that the liner was sewn incorrectly.
Just to be safe, I measured all eight horizontal rails, and they’re identical and fit properly in their respective sleeves. I emailed Intex through their website and attached photos. Since it’s Sunday, I don’t expect anyone to see it until tomorrow, but I plan to follow up by phone tomorrow afternoon as well.
For anyone who has received a replacement for a defective liner from Intex, how long did it take for them to send it? If I go through Amazon, I’d have to repackage and return the entire pool before getting a replacement, so I’m really hoping Intex can send a new liner quickly.

I've been seeing that the mustard allergy and other types of algae are too fine for sand filters and to pass right through. Which is the problem.

**How often should I be changing the sand in my Hayward filter?** It's a '27 ft above ground, 14.6k gall. Filter is probably a good 10-15 years old. Likey never been changed.

To deal with the algae, I have been shocking once a week with two pounds of Cal hypo the next day I either use a hose siphon or vacuum to waste and pick up all the little brown pools of algae on the floor. Is this the way?

I have a rust stain in my pool.

It started when roofing nail fell into the pool, over wintered, discovered during late spring make-ready for summer.

Using a spot out applicator with 50 mL reservoir attached to the end of the pool pole, I’ve tried muriatic acid solution which made it worse—more diffuse area with downstream streaking. I placed a rust out solution which seemed to have little benefit.

Any ideas?

My pool doesn’t have any lights and want to explore my options for lighting. I of course don’t want to redo my pool or even empty it so I was wondering if you guys know of any options.

My son and I will be there for the AAU Nationals meet and we are wondering about parking? Will there be overflow parking?

Hi there! We’re looking into installing a pool, and we’re exploring all options in cocktail-sized range- from swim spas to in-ground cocktail pools.

My question is for anyone with a smaller pool. Did you outgrew it quickly? If you have kids, did they lose interest in their teen years?

As mentioned above, we’re looking at a number of options no greater than 20ft, including:

-swim spas from 14ft
-pentarm mini pools
- “rust proof” container pools (not convinced how rust proof they are)

My kids are 7 and 10. Not sure if a pool is worth the investment as they’re growing quickly.

trying to figure out how much a heat pump would actually buy me on each end of the season. north carolina, 18k gal inground. it's june and the water still drops into the 60s overnight, so morning swims are out and even afternoons take a while to warm up. by the time it's comfortable the day's half gone.

i keep going back and forth on a heat pump. part of me says summer's basically here, why spend now. the other part says i've already lost spring to cold water and fall's going to do the same in reverse.

for people who added one: did getting a heat pump partway through the season still feel worth it, or did you wish you'd done it in spring or waited til next year? i mostly care about extending the comfortable months on both ends, not heating it to bath temperature in july.

also is an inverter one actually worth the premium over a basic on off model for just stretching the season? that's the part i can't get a straight answer on.

We have a 25K gallon in-ground vinyl pool, 40' long with a 8' deep end. Our pool installer threw in a Beatbot A100 (equivalent to the Aquasense 1), which was less than impressive for us. Primarily because of the lack of ultra-fine filter which meant all the fine silt that we get at the bottom of the pool just goes right through it. Beatbot claims they can send me a finer filter (I believe around ~60 micron) at the end of July, but we couldn't wait that long.

We purchased a Dolphin Active 2000 at a local Maytronics "elite" dealer. Immediately we noticed how much more adept it was at trapping the fine silt, it didn't leave a trail of dust behind it everywhere it went. However, after running it basically on repeat since we got it, it's turned out to be disappointing.

* The number one issue is that it just does not hit the shallow end in any real capacity. It's a miracle if it actually travels up the slope from the deep end to the shallow end and does any work down there. 90% of the time you look out the window at the robot, it's just meandering around the very bottom of the deep end.

* On that same note, I have not noticed it actually reaching the waterline when in a mode that has waterline included. It doesn't seem to want to travel up the entirety of the wall. The Beatbot definitely hits the waterline more in waterline mode. However, the waterline is not our primary concern right now, so I could ignore that fact if it were able to hit the entire floor of the pool.

* Multiple times I've noticed it just completely stopped in the middle of a cycle (of course usually at the bottom of the deep end), no error message or anything. If I manually drive it from the app, it then usually wakes back up and starts cleaning again. Sometimes it will stop again in that same cycle. If I don't notice it, the entire rest of the cycle gets wasted.

* The anti-tangle cord gets twisted way more than I'd expect during a cycle. I make sure to spread out and untwist the cord after every cycle, but it assuredly gets twisted again the following cycle. Not knotted of course, but enough to create more tension on the cord than ideal.

I've tried the troubleshooting: The power supply isn't plugged into an extension cord, placing the power supply at different locations around the pool, placing the robot into the pool at different locations facing different directions, power supply in the shade with a fan blowing on it, checking the impeller, getting the cord taut and untwisted after each run, trying every single cleaning mode, etc.

I've read that the models with only 1 drive unit, because of the way they turn, can really struggle getting up a steep slope into the shallow end. So I've looked at the Dolphin models with two drive units. I definitely want to stick with a model that has a basket filter and a good warranty. From the Dolphin comparison chart, it looks like that leaves me with the E55, M550, then M600/Active 60/T60. It's a pretty significant price increase to jump up to those. I'm willing to try them out, but I want to know if I can even expect my experience to be that much better with those. Or- am I better off trying a different cordless model, or a different corded brand, based on my experience with this Dolphin?

Thanks in advance.