indyattic

Thanks for the answer, and for the link. I am sorry if I am missing the obvious. If I vacuuming to waste - is that hooking up the vaccuum, turning on the pump and filter, and then having the water just come out the backwash hose? What happens if I accidently suck up a leaf or something?

I just bought a house that had been empty for a year or more. It came with an above ground Doughboy pool that was uncovered all that time. We have been adding water, scooping leaves, adding chemicals, and filtering, filtering, filtering. We can finally see the bottom when we let the water settle, but what we see is a bunch of sludge / silt....something icky. Reading through here, the answer seems to be to use the "waste" setting on my filter. But I'm not sure how to do that. The "stuff" doesn't reach the skimmer unless we stir the water up, and it doesn't stay stirred very well. Is there a way I can hook a hose to the filter and sort of vaccuum the bottom?