What is the stuff that forms from the evapration of salt on my equipment.

[Andrew17030]

I was just cleaning my fuge and sump and my skimmer was splashing water that evaporated and left mineral deposites I'm gonna take a guess that it is salt. My question is, is it salt in the same for that I mix to make artificial saltwater or has it likely changed chemically after it's has been introduced to the aquarium. I would like to know for future refference when cleaning because some always gets back into the water. Additionally, if it has changed or not will it be a problem?

[bertoni]

It's salt mix, but parts of it have been changed chemically during the process of dehydration. It won't redissolve properly. I just discard it. :)

[Flipper62]

yep.....its salt creep. As Bertoni said, get it out. However...keep an eye on the salinity. Whenever you have salt creep, that means that salt is comming out of the water.

When this happens, the salinity level can be going down. Just the same way as when you have water evaporation. Its the water that evaporates not the salt, so the salinity will be getting higher.

[clownfreak]

Yeah, I have it to, the guy at my lfs puts theirs back into the tank. I don't know if it redissolves in their large system or what.

[PaxRoma]

you don't want to put this back in the tank unless its particles are really small. If you put it back in the tank and it happens to land on the corals it will burn (make a hole) in that coral.