BioGuard SoftSwim Filter Aid is a dual-purpose granular product for SoftSwim pools — it works as a filter aid at one dose and a flocculant at another. Which one you’re using changes the entire procedure, so knowing the difference before you pour is the whole job.
As a filter aid, it helps trap microscopic particles that normally pass straight through your filter media. Fine debris, body oils, and the residue biguanide chemistry captures are often smaller than a filter can physically catch, so they recirculate indefinitely and leave water looking hazy no matter how long the pump runs. The product improves what the filter can capture, and the filter removes the material.
As a flocculant, at a much heavier dose, it does something different: it gathers suspended particles into masses heavy enough to sink to the pool floor, where you vacuum them out. That’s the fast path for genuinely cloudy water — hours rather than days — but it requires vacuuming to waste rather than through the filter.
Both modes matter more on a biguanide program than they would on a chlorine pool. SoftSwim’s sanitizer works by binding contaminants and holding them in suspension for the filter to remove, which means clarity on a SoftSwim pool depends heavily on filtration performing well. When water goes hazy, it’s usually a filtration issue rather than a chemistry issue — and this is the product built for it.
It’s formulated specifically for SoftSwim-equipped pools and works with sand, cartridge, and DE filters. Made in the USA.
Pro Tip: Decide which mode you’re using before you open the container, because the doses differ enormously and so does what happens next. Filter aid is roughly 1/2 to 1 lb per 10,000–35,000 gallons, and the filter removes the material over the following day. Flocculant is 1 lb per 6,500 gallons — several times heavier — and it drops everything to the floor for you to vacuum out. Use the flocculant dose and then filter normally, and you’ll pack your media solid. Use the filter aid dose expecting debris on the floor, and nothing will settle. Match the dose to the outcome you actually want.
Brand
BioGuard®