Dumb question about IR blocking filter

This is probably a stupid question, but I have a CFW8 with the IR blocking filter in line (in the nose of the filter wheel) I was looking at the filters(for dust) and noticed that the IR filter and the clear filter in the wheel seem to be identical. I've also been unable to get good results with tri-color images (no color when combined). Is there a way to tell the differnce between a IR and a clear filter? And if this was just a clear filter in line, would this be my problem with tri-color imaging? Thanks for any help,
Tom

This would not be the source of your color problems. That is likely either a bug with your software, or your filter wheel is not working correctly.

It is not easy to tell the difference between a plain clear filter and an IR-block filter. If you look at them side-by-side, you will see that the IR-block filter looks a little "darker" compared to the non-IR block.

I think that the SBIG filters had a blue retaining ring if the filter had built-in IR block, and a black retaining ring if the filter was not IR-blocking.

Hope this helps...

Jeff