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I cleaned out my XP3 and did a partial water change on the tank a few days ago, and woke up today to a tank with brown water, instead of the clear water I left it with when I went to bed. I decided to get brand new media and do another water change, and discovered that the entire canister of the XP3 was filled with dark blue/black water. I have never seen this before. I changed out the bio-stars with new ones, I'm thinking the old ones might have leached into the water, but then it's weird the water in the tank wasn't blue/black.

Anyone ever seen this before?

This is weird. Did you add any drift wood to the tank? Or carbon without rinsing?

I've never heard of this either. Nothing else had changed?

The only other thing that has changed was the addition of a new submersible heater last week. There's nothing in the tank, either (plain I know).

I'm gonna see what happens the next few days, if the water clears up and stays that way then my guess is it had to do with the carbon or the bio-stars that I replaced today.

I'd opt to change all the water. I have never heard of such a change in water color on that scale before.

Like I said, I had swapped all the water and cleaned the xp3, the tank went brown and cloudy and the filter had black water ion it. I've since put fresh media in and did a full water change and it looks good for now.

I didn't read that previous post clearly, sorry

How's everything else?

the only time ive ever seen black waterin a filter was when i swapped out my old filter and forgot to empty it. the water went stagnant and turned black, but other than that it sounds wierd to me.

I can't remember but are the filter pads on the XP3/XP4 colored? I know for example, fluval colors their pads to distinguish fine from medium etc. I'm wondering if the colored pads you had were from a bad lot and the dye from the pads came off.

All the XP pads from Rena are black plastic. I'm not sure of there are 3rd party pads. Right now, I would have to guess it's the carbon.