San Antonio source for supplements

[matt]

I'm looking for a San Antonio source for Mrs. Wages or Ball pickling lime, dowflake, and magflake. The south side HEB where I used to buy pickling lime no longer carries it. I know Gary once did a group order for dowflake, which leads me to believe none of the local home depot stores carry it. Has anybody found any of these products locally?

I did find dupont "calcium hardness increaser" which appears to be 97% (or something like that) calcium chloride, and is probably reef safe...as they list the other ingredients as harmless. But it has not been independently tested for reef safeness, so I'd prefer to find the dowflake.

[technomex]

PM'ed my number. I have a full bag of dowflake call me if you need it.

[GaryP]

matt, I have ben getting Mrs Balls at the small town grocery stores. Super S in particular carries it. I usually pick it up in Blanco when we go up there to meet some friends. Super S is a lot of smaller towns that HEB or WalMart hasn't taken over yet. They are in most hill country towns and many of the smaller towns south of SA. I'm going to Kerrville on Mon. I can pick you some up there. I think I will just grab several containers.

I checked on the calcium hardness increaser at Leslie's and it seems to be Dow Flake. I was there to check on a product I am thinking about testing as a phosphate absorber but while I was there I checked the calcium product as well.

I'm not sure what is up with Dowflake. I sent someone to go get some where I normally pay $18 for it. He was told that it was $50. I think they just don't want to deal with small purchases there anymore. I'm going to need some pretty soon so I guess I will have to work something out.

[erick]

try heb central market for the pickling lime. They usually carry it, I use it for making REAL pickles!!

[eddie]

just ask the manager at HEB to order it for you. They usually will get it for you.

[GaryP]

What is the mexican stuff they use for making masa? That is not pickling lime, but when you add water to it turns into it. We had a thread going about it at one time that I jumped into to give some basic chemistry background. Chemically, its the same thing they use to make cement from, but rather in a food grade version.

CaO + H2O ---> CaOH2 + heat

CaO is true lime (Calcium Oxide), as opposed to pickling lime.