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My Skin Burns


skylerfox

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I just purchased a used 2013 HotSpring Vista (500 Gallon) model hot tub from a private part on craigslist. It's just less than two years old and seems practically brand new. I cleaned it up, balanced the water. I've used it four times and now am fearful to even get into the tub.

I see a lot of post speaking of itchy skin or red spots. I have neither of these problems. My skin feels like I a light sunburn all over and is pretty uncomfortable. There is NO REDNESS to indicate any inflammation, but a sense of warmth, and touching it somewhat hurts and sometimes a prickly feeling as if I rolled in some fiberglass. It's a feeling of radiation or chemical burn if I could describe it. It seems much more than just dry skin.

My set up: It has an ozonator, I installed a nature 2 cartridge and am using Clorox Pool & Spa Shock Xtra Blue. I initially cleaned the spa shell with Natural Chemistry Clean & Pertect and rinsed it out. I cleaned the 5 ceramic filters with Spa Guard Filter Cleaner and spinned them with a high pressure nozzle. I filled the tub and adjusted the hardness up with Leslie's Hardness Plus (had to use a lot since my hardness was 0) which I believe is Calcium Carbonate. The PH and TA was high and used Sodium Bisulfate to bring it down. I super oxidized it with 3 TBSP of the Clorox Xtra Blue and waited 24 hours to enter the water until the chlorine burned off. Since then, all I've done is put in about a TBSP of the Clorox Xtra Blue after each use. I also had to add a fair amount of Spa Guard Anti-Foam because of excessive foaming.

From my understanding I thought the point was that with the Nature 2 cartridge and ozonator, that I could simply just add a small dose of the Chlorine after every use with a weekly or biweekly shock. The idea being that once I enter the tub, there is nothing but clear clean water every time I go for a soak.

My previous spa, I used the baqua-spa set up and never experienced any problems. I've just heard so much negative publicity with it, that I decided to continue with the chemical routine the original owner used since he gave me all of his chemicals too. I've never had a problem with Chlorine in an public pools and am not sure what my problem is now.

My thoughts:

1) I noticed that the Clorox Xtra Blue has Dichlor-s-triazinetrione with Copper added to it. It seems as if the copper has been added as an additional benefit to help kill algae. Could the addition of copper be the potential catalyst? I see that they make another similar product called Clorox Pool & Shock Plus which doesn't have the copper. Would that be a better choice. Could it be a copper sensitivity?

2) I know the Nature2 cartridge has silver in it, but seems that other post might indicate there is copper in it too, or am I mistaken? Has anyone had a problem or sensitivity to Nature 2?

3) It doesn't seem that I can find anything on line speaking negatively of ozone. Has anyone on here heard of anyone having a sensitivity to Ozone causing skin irritability?

4) I found this thread and copied and pasted it below speaking of never letting your sanitizer go to 0. I thought that with my setup above I would be basically entering the tub with 0 chemicals in it. One of the hot tub vendors in my area said that's how they keep the tubs they wet test clean with no smell or chemicals. Could this be a potential problem of me being misinformed?

5) When I filled up the tub initially, some white granular stuff came out of the ozonator. It appeared to be some sort of undissolved pool chemicals. Is that even possible or a clue to something else?

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This post shows a table of all reported rash/itch problems, mostly reported on this forum, and the main pattern is having too low or no sanitizer -- either bromine or chlorine -- or longer-term usage after 1-1.5 months. With Dichlor, this is understandable due to the buildup of CYA. With bromine it is unclear of the cause in every case.

Letting the sanitizer level get close to zero is an absolute no-no. It only takes from 15 minutes to an hour for most bacteria to double in population. That's up to an increase in population of over 4 billion in 8 hours if there were no limiting factors. So being lax for just one day is all it takes to have bacterial soup. This is one reason some people use Nature2 or other metal ion systems so that uncontrolled bacterial growth is kept in check even if you forget to add some sanitizer (metal ions kill more slowly than chlorine or bromine, but still fast enough to prevent uncontrolled bacterial growth in most cases). Use of an ozonator can help kill free-floating bacteria, but won't do anything for bacteria stuck to surfaces in biofilms. If you test your chlorine level (or bromine, if you go back to that) before you get in to soak, then if it's zero or near zero (< 0.5 ppm), do not go into the tub without adding some sanitizer first and then wait for a few minutes (depending on CYA level -- if CYA level is high, then wait 10 minutes or more), and retest to make sure the sanitizer is still there. Most people just do this initially and then know their "routine" and what their tub needs to maintain a sanitizer residual.

Richard

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5) I see there are different types of Chlorine available. Is Dichloro-s-triazinetrione somehow different than the type used in public pools or spas? If so, could it react differently to my skin?

I would like to make the chlorine system work. I am not in any hurry to go back to the baqua spa.

Hopefully I've given enough information here and that one of you resident experts here might know something that could steer me in the right direction. I want to use my spa, not fear it! Thanks!

JIm

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I spoke with one of the managers at Leslie Pool Supply in regards to this issue. She seemed to think it was a reaction to the copper in the Clorox Xtra Blue mixing with the Silver Ion from the Nature 2 cartridge. She said that a copper algaecide should be neutralized with a product that removes metal before swimmers can enter the water. Is this true? I am also not sure why the person that sold me the tub was using a dichlor that contained an algaecide in the first place (he gave me his chemicals too). I can imagine it would much harder to grow algae in portable tub that has a cover, vs a built in permanent hot tub that is exposed to sunlight. It was probably not necessary in the first place. Don't you need a lot of sunlight to grow algae?

Here is a video link on youtube I found showing a reaction by mixing copper with silver nitrate:

I found it Interesting that on the standard Nature 2 box, It specifically says that it is not compatible with Biguanide or Copper. On the Nature 2 box that is made specifically for Hotspring Spas (the one I had), it only mentions that it is not compatible with biguanide. They are both the same exact thing. I wonder if this was on over site from the Nature 2 manufacturer by not disclosing the copper incompatibility this for the Hotspring Spa version cartridge.

On the flip side of the coin, I've seen some other types of Nature 2 cartridge for different applications that are made and have both copper and silver. Are there different types of copper and silver? What gives?

I suspect that maybe I was very lucky, and that I didn't get badly hurt! So what does the Chemical Jury say? Could this likely have been the source that was irritating my skin?

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  • 9 months later...

Skin burning is very irritating part, that one can experience. If you are affected by a burn, hold that part under running water for around 10-15 min or until the pain reduces. Keep that burnt part protected and let it heal automatically. Apply proper cream which will let feel cool. You can find out more creams that will help to reduce the scars on skin.

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  • 1 month later...

While the original thread is old, the most recent post has prompted me to clarify something about the video that was posted.

The copper and silver nitrate redox reaction is with SOLID copper mixed with silver nitrate in solution forming copper nitrate in solution and forming solid silver.

Cu(s) + 2Ag(NO3) ---> Cu(NO3)2 + 2Ag(s)

Copper Solid + Silver Nitrate ---> Copper Nitrate + Silver Solid

As shown in the Ingredients list here:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Clorox-Pool-and-Spa-Shock-Xtra-Blue-1-lb/41466056#about-item

the product has 0.26% metallic copper equivalent but as COPPER CITRATE so it's copper ions, NOT solid.  So the reaction you described does not occur.  Furthermore, there is very little copper and silver in the water so not enough to form needles as shown in that video.

Nature2 for Spas does not have copper in it (Nature2 for pools does).  For spas it has silver and zinc.

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