---
title: "Small, hollow or cloudy ice"
description: "Frigidaire small, hollow or cloudy ice — this is a flow complaint rather than a freezing one, and it is almost always upstream of the ice maker."
url: "https://frigidairemiami.support/symptoms/ice-cubes-small-or-hollow/"
date_modified: "2026-09-08"
Appliance type: "Ice maker, refrigerator"
---


# Frigidaire small, hollow or cloudy ice

### What to do in the next ten minutes

Change the filter if it is more than six months old and discard the first two or three batches. Check that nobody has partly closed the shut-off under the sink. If the cubes are cloudy rather than small, run a glass of water from the dispenser and look at it — cloudiness that clears from the bottom up is dissolved air, and that is normal.

### Why cube size is a plumbing question

The ice maker does not measure water; it runs the fill valve for a set number of seconds and freezes whatever arrives. That single design decision is why every restriction upstream — filter, valve, line, pressure — shows up as a smaller or hollow cube rather than as no ice at all. It is also why replacing the ice maker when the cubes are small is one of the commonest wasted repairs in this trade.

### Cloudy is usually not a failure

Domestic ice makers freeze from the outside in, and the air and minerals dissolved in the water end up trapped in the middle — which is what the white core is. Clear ice needs a machine that freezes slowly from one direction, which is what a commercial ice cabinet does and a refrigerator module does not. If the ice tastes wrong rather than looks wrong, that is a filter question and worth a visit.

A restricted filter

The commonest single answer, and the cheapest. Generic filters that do not seat properly restrict while looking installed.

Low supply pressure

A shut-off not fully open, a saddle valve that has silted up, or a line kinked behind the cabinet when it was last pushed back.

The freezer is marginal

A mold that has not reached temperature harvests early and produces a thin, soft cube that welds to its neighbors in the bin.

Change the filter and wait a day

Two or three batches discarded, then look again. This ends most of these.

Check the shut-off is fully open

Half-open valves after plumbing work are a common and free explanation.

Measure the freezer

A cabinet at 15°F makes poor ice and normal-looking food.

The cubes are arriving but they are not right

What it usually means

The mold fills for a fixed time — less water in means a smaller cube out

A filter past its date changes cube size before it changes anything else

Cloudy ice is usually air and minerals in the water, not a failure at all

What to do in the next ten minutes

Change the filter if it is more than six months old and discard the first two or three batches. Check that nobody has partly closed the shut-off under the sink. If the cubes are cloudy rather than small, run a glass of water from the dispenser and look at it — cloudiness that clears from the bottom up is dissolved air, and that is normal.

Why cube size is a plumbing question

The ice maker does not measure water; it runs the fill valve for a set number of seconds and freezes whatever arrives. That single design decision is why every restriction upstream — filter, valve, line, pressure — shows up as a smaller or hollow cube rather than as no ice at all. It is also why replacing the ice maker when the cubes are small is one of the commonest wasted repairs in this trade.

Cloudy is usually not a failure

Domestic ice makers freeze from the outside in, and the air and minerals dissolved in the water end up trapped in the middle — which is what the white core is. Clear ice needs a machine that freezes slowly from one direction, which is what a commercial ice cabinet does and a refrigerator module does not. If the ice tastes wrong rather than looks wrong, that is a filter question and worth a visit.

### The cubes stick together in one lump.

That is melting and refreezing, which points at the compartment temperature, the door seal or a dispenser flap not closing — not at the ice maker.

### It got worse after we changed the filter.

Then the filter is the wrong one or is not seated. Aftermarket filters vary a great deal in flow, and a poorly fitting one restricts more than the old one did.

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**[Read full article: Small, hollow or cloudy ice](https://frigidairemiami.support/symptoms/ice-cubes-small-or-hollow/)**