How To Remove Sand from Your Pool

Aside from pool algae, nothing really wrecks the swimming pool experience as much as gritty sand on your pool surfaces. Without the proper know-how, getting sand out of your pool can be a nitty-gritty job (pun intended) but if you know the right way to do it then it shouldn’t be much of a hassle. But before we get into the finer details of pool sand removal and how to clean sand out of your swimming pool, let’s go over the ways how they go there in the first place.

If you have sand at the bottom of your swimming pool, don’t panic! A lot of people think that there’s a problem with their sand filter but let’s not jump to conclusions yet. There are many reasons why there’s sand in your swimming pool and the simplest answer to that is it just fell in! It may come from swimwear that was used at the beach and wasn’t washed properly or even from the wind.

A tiny amount of sand in your pool is completely normal and they might even be just large dust particles being blown around by the Australian wind and deposited into your pool.

But if you see large amounts of sand build up in a short amount of time then you may have a problem with your pool sand filter

SEE ALSO: All About Pool Sand Filters!

Now some people might be asking, I don’t have a sand filter, but I still have sand at the bottom of my pool. Well, it might be from sand blowing into your pool OR it might not be sand altogether! Yellow pool algae or mustard algae can look like sand! The best way to check this is to get some of the “sand” and touch it. If it feels like plant matter or is sticky, then it’s mustard algae. Another way to check is to stir it around with a brush or something similar.

Sand will move around like particles and settle down while mustard algae will bloom up and cause your water to become cloudy. If this is the case, you need to dose your pool with some algaecide and follow our guide to removing mustard algae here.

Getting rid of sand in your pool is a very quick and straightforward process. You’ll need only two pieces of equipment, a good pool brush, and a good pool vacuum. Of course it wouldn't hurt at all to have a very sturdy telepole and a great leaf rake to scoop out other debris.  

Break out the pool brush and give your pool a thorough scrub. Surfaces, walls, and pool lines, everything. What this does is it dislodges sand that may be stuck on surfaces so that it can easily be vacuumed out. Not only that, but it also removes algae and other contaminants from your pool surface.

Spend extra time and do the bottom of your pool carefully, sweeping all of the dust, sand, and debris into one neat pile for easy vacuuming.

Once all of the sand and other debris are all gathered up in one spot, carefully vacuum it up. Take your time, and carefully vacuum every bit of sand. Rushing this part may cause the sand to blow over all around the pool and settle down after you’re done!

Don’t forget to set your sand filter to waste or your cartridge filter’s 3-way valve to waste to save your filter elements from the load of re-filtering out the waste.

Now if you don’t have a vacuum, then you really should be getting one. But if you have a portable pool without a filtration system then you can easily use a small dustpan and pool brush to SLOWLY and CAREFULLY brush all of the sand particles to one place without stirring it up.

The good thing about having an automatic and robotic pool cleaners is that they basically do sand removal for you. Just let them run and they’ll cover every bit of your pool, sucking up dirt, debris, and sand even while they’re still invisible to the naked eye, not giving them time to build up and be noticed!

Related Articles:

• The Best Swimming Pool Sand Filters
• Building a Poolside SandBox for the kids