As FrugalRefiner stated in an attempt to help you, safety needs to be on the top of your list of concerns.
From what I see so far, in the pictures, it make me suspect iron was involved in this solution, I am unsure where the iron came from, or if it is even involved, iron can resemble gold in several different ways, Hokes book page 100 gives some information on iron, and help with identification and testing for iron in solution.
The filter looks full of an iron hydroxide, did you have iron involved in any part of the processes?
The yellow stain in your test may also be from iron.
The color changes in your first post could also be a reaction of iron.
Up to this point I do not see anywhere you proved to us or yourself that you had gold in solution, so at this point your still just guessing you had gold in solution, which if so has been cemented out of solution in the brown iron looking mud or sludge.
I still suspect iron, cemented gold would have a more blackish look to the powder, if there was gold its cemented black powder may be mixed in that sludge in your filter.
If you were going to cement any values you may have had in solution by using copper as a displacement reaction, removing nitric would not be needed (unless of coarse you were trying to conserve on how much copper you were going to use), but being conservative on your nitric use in the beginning would have been a better choice.
Mcnew32(Ag),
What I see, is you have learned just a little about what you think may work, it also appears you are getting misinformation in what you have learned up to this point, now your trying what you think you have learned, but what I see is you are just trying things in the dark, without an understanding of anything your attempting, this will just lead you from one problem to the next, spending your time trying to solve problems you create through ignorance, this may help you learn to get out of a mess or a bad situation, but it will not help you learn how to recover or refine precious metals with the best use of your time energy and money, the first step should be to educate yourself, in the safety and to gain an understanding of these processes your are attempting. study of Hokes book and the forum is the help you need, to help yourself, asking questions of how to get out of one mess so you can get into the next mess is not going to help you get very far in this field of work.
I suggest the best thing you can do is put up your chemicals and get out Hokes book, and study the forum, when your ready to begin using the chemicals, I suggest using them in doing the getting acquainted experiments in Hokes. this in my opinion would be a wisest place to start, and put you the closer and faster towards getting that pure gold in your melting dish (and doing so safely).