So dissolved some gold, didn't get it as pure as I wanted so I'm processing it again. It is gold and nickel only. The first time I processed it I got the stuff in my filter (pic below) anyone know what this is?. I gave it multiple hot hcl then distilled water baths, switching back and forth. I precipitated the gold with SMB. There was a good amount of colloidal gold layer on top of my gold mud. This warranted me to process it again. So I have it in hcl and am adding my few mL of hno3 every so often, on low heat. Every time I go to add more hno3 and stir it with my stir rod, I notice the precipitate is getting kinda hard and clumpy and I have to break it up with my stir rod. Anyone know why this is happening? The second pic is just the product currently in solution.