Calcium

[zelmo]

Is there a "grocery store" source for adding calcium?

[waterbear]

Drink lots of milk?
(ok, I'll go back to my corner now!)

Not that I know of but it can be had at other places than a pool store. Calcium cloride (I beleive it is 73%) is also used as a de-icer in winter. My friendly neighborhood pool store carrier it in the small expensive 5 lb plastic jars marked for pool use and also sells it in 25lb bags which are marked as being for deicing. I double checked their price at my friendly neighborhood Home Depot and the pool store was competative so I decided to give them my business since the owner always takes the time to answer my questions to the best of his knowlege. (The guy tries but he has been pool stored himself!)
Anyway, I am getting off track, You can find it at home improvement stores like Lowes and Home Depot but it migh not be any cheaper than at the pool store if you buy the BIG bag sold as a deicer. If you don't need a whole lot you can buy the small jars and Walmart, lowes, home depot, ect. in the pool supplie dept.

(If anyone is wondering why I use calcium with a fiberglass pool and acrylic spa--my fill water comes out of my whole house water softener and I do have a heatpump in the system so I run my CH at about 140-150 ppm since I have 0ppm CH normally.)

[zelmo]

Thanks. My local Leslie's sells their Calc Up (CaCl2) in larger buckets, but it isn't cheap. Are you saying that your local store brings in the de-icer and sells it as calcium increaser?

[waterbear]

-a

Thanks. My local Leslie's sells their Calc Up (CaCl2) in larger buckets, but it isn't cheap. Are you saying that your local store brings in the de-icer and sells it as calcium increaser?

Yes, the local Pinch-a-Penny frachise sells DowFlake brand Calcium Chloride in big bags. It says it's 77% -80% calcium chloride and the instructions on the bag are for melting snow and ice. They also sell a few pool brands in small and big plastic buckets but they co$t a lot more per pound and have the same ingredient.
Once again, calcium chloride is calcium chloride

[zelmo]

After looking around, a local hardware store still has PELADOW de-icer. I looked at Dow's website and it is very similar to DowFlake, except that it is in pellet form and is 90% CaCl2.

Does anyone know how easily the pellets dissolve?

[kaybinster]

Why do you want to add calcium chloride to raise calcium, why not calcium carbonate which is plain old lime. You can buy a 50# bag at the garden store very cheaply -- remember to get the white powdered kind not that newer pellet style.