Within 1 day of using our new scumball our water had small blue sticky balls floating in the water and the submerged part of the scumball was dark yellow. We had just changed the water and added a brand new Clarathon filter that week. We have used a scumball for years with no issues and really just thought we wanted a newer one, but they have apparently changed them. The new scumball is just soft foam with no terry cloth outer surface like our old one. After cleaning our tub of the gross stickly blue balls we checked the filter and it was dissolving and unusable. I normally rotate between two filters and thoroughly clean one and let it dry when I install the clean dry one. Now my filter which was brand new the week before is unusable, uncleanable and I need to order new filters again.