07 lightning ballast issue...

A friend of mine has a new 07 Centurion Lightning. It has a single ballast tank. Looks like it has a self priming pump to fill (looks like my water puppy, but it's not reversible) and an aerator type pump to empty. There is also a filter in the system. The problem is the tank doesn't want to fill. The pump runs but doesn't seem to draw the water up. He says he bleeds the air out of the line by messing with the filter then it starts to fill. I thought with a self priming pump this wouldn't be necessary? Very frustrating to have to mess with this everytime on the water. Any thoughts on what the problem would be?

is there a shut off valve if so make sure it is open when you put the boat in the water, or it can cause a air lock and the pump will never draw water

yes, there is a shut off valve. It is always left open. One suggestion the dealer made was to close that valve before leaving the lake everytime to keep water up in the line and the pump primed. That would work. That is also somewhat of a hassle and I wouldn't think this is how they would design it to work?

Have you tried throwing it in reverse, then shutting off the engine to get the boat to gently drift in reverse while starting the pump? Sometimes this will help prime the line.

problem found. Not exactly sure what it was, but some sort of valve (maybe a check valve) was installed in the ballast system that wasn't suppose to be installed? It is only suppose to be in boats with multiple ballast tanks? Or something like that according to his dealer.