Pool Equipment

[POOL FOOL]

We just bought a home with an inground pool and attached spa (spa overflows into the pool).

I have no experience with pools and am trying to maintain it myself. I've done a ton of reading online and think I get the basics. However.....

In the pool equipment area, there seems to be TWO pool pums and TWO filters. One of the filters is a sand filter and the other is a cartridge (looks like a large oversized bullet) filter.

Does the pool and spa operate on two different pumps/filters?

There's also an automatic vaccum that crawls around the bottom of the pool. Is the second pump/filter for the vaccum? Is this second setup suctioning water through the vacuum?

There's also a large electronics box with buttons for the pool/spa as well as a keypad in the house. What controls the equipment? The box outside or the keypad inside?

Thank you.

[Guru]

It's pretty common to have a "dual equipment/dual body of water" setup with a shared power center. It would help to know the make/model of the control system. Is the spa attached to pool as in a spillway? Why are you saying "attached"? How is it attached? It is common to have a separate pump for a cleaner, but often times it will not have it's own filter.

[Guru]

Sorry, I see it has a spillway. It could either be a spa jet pump OR it's for the vacuum. The best way to tell is to simply run each pump one at a time and see what's happening at the pool/spa. Almost all attached spas are connected at the plumbing to the pool pump and filter so this other, smaller cartridge filter sounds like a peripheral item. At the plumbing, are each pump/filter combo isolated from each other, or are there valves and pipes that seem to connect the two?