This past weekend we knew we were going to have 90F degree weather so I got the pool ready as best as possible. I have both the Taylor 2006C and the quick strips. I am gradually switching over to using the Taylor kit exclusively, but do admit I like to do a quick test with the strips since I still have a bunch of them.

My pH was really high (as tested by the Taylor) so I added Muriatic Acid using the guide found in the little booklet that comes with the Taylor test kit. I still have some of those chemicals left over from before I started reading the messages in this forum.

Heated the pool to about 82 degrees and continued to use the spa to heat the spa and the pool. Several of us got in, including 3 adults and about 5 kids. Of all of us, 1 female adult and 1 boy and 2 girls got skin rashes. They all seem to suspect it was from sitting on the steps in the spa. I buy that as I have had some algae (mustard?) problems and did not see it in the spa, so I did not brush it there. I did see it in the pool and brushed it there. Sorry this is long winded and seems to be going on and on without a real point. Do any of you know if the mustard algae can cause this?

I know, it would help to know my "numbers" on this day, but I only did pH and Chlroine of the pool only:

FC 3.2ppm
CC 0.2ppm
TC (FC + CC right?) = 3.5ppm
pH 7.8

Today, 2 days later, I did the complete readings of both the pool and the spa. They are connected but my gf suggested that the spa had different values and that's why the skin rashes?! For the record, I was in both the pool and spa and did not get any skin rashes at all.

Spa
2 ppm FC
0 CC
PH 7.6
TA 125 ppm
CH 925 ppm
CYA 95 ppm

Pool
1.4 ppm FC
0 CC
PH 7.6
Ta 125 ppm
CH 900 ppm
CYA 75 ppm

I guess my real question is, do those numbers look "safe"? What would you do differently? I believe my IG pool is about 13k gallons and the spa is maybe 5k gallons -- probably less because of the wraparound bench.