Back onto calcium.

Calcium is actually a metal that reacts with other things in the environment to make calcium salts. Much like the sodium salts we use on the dinner table and in cooking.


Some calcium will never be absorbed from it's salt compounds. Calcium fluoride for example as too tight a bond to the fluoride for an animal to break the calcium out of the compound. Calcium fluoride - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Calcium chloride on the other hand is a common salt that most organisms can break down and is commonly found in dusting kits. Calcium chloride - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


As a company i can make a bowl out of 100% calcium fluoride or a mixture with this material in it. Trading standards could not pull me up for it because in effect it would be releasing calcium into the water. However your body cannot use this calcium at all and it servers no purpose in your body.


If i made a bowl with the useful salts they would simply start to dissolve into the water and after a few months there would be no benefit left from that bowl. In fact if i made the bowl from nothing but this material it would be the same as making the bowl out of table salt... Eventually it would disappear. I also could not control the salt been released.



The lack of control over these chemicals is also an issue, If your water is left too long it will become saturated with salts. If you change the water every day the water will vary in salt content at the start and end of the day!




Personally i would avoid these bowls for small animals.