"Coffee filter?  Why?  Didn't your's come with the initial screen filter?"

if you mean the white nylon filter screen under the mesh, yes, the filter cartridge came that way.  That was what had me fooled as to how much the filter was clogging - when I looked at the white screen, it was WHITE and clean looking - wasn't until later when I pulled it off to clean it, that I could see how dirty brown the filter element was - i.e. pollen or sediment was going right thru the white screen.

 I don't see that coffee filters, (which did trap sediment and pollen, as they were dirty when replaced) would do any harm and have the potential to prolong any filter cartridge - I use them on the inlet hose of my pumps all the time.

At the point in time when we started using the pump filter, the flow from the gravity filter was just    .....drop .... drop ...... drop ...... maybe one or two drops a second - still working, but so slowly that it didn't provide enough water in time for dinner when we needed it - in about the same length of operating time, it went from maybe a gal and a half output to about 3 cups by the 8th or 9th day.  Still worked, and we ran it overnight for next days water, just didnt' work fast enough.


I hadn't thought about trying to back flush it with the Guide pump - likely would have helped, but how much ?  Its like you are pumping water to save having to pump water?  still, it may be worth a try