I would go buy a bottle of "Filter Cleaner" and read the label. The stuff works pretty well. One thing that is not always clear on the label: if a bottle makes five gallons, but it only takes one gallon to cover your filter, you only need to add about a fifth of the bottle and save the rest for next time.
I just figured that out this weekend.
I cleaned my filter for the first time this weekend and used the whole bottle. The lable stated 1 bottle for 5 gal of water. I placed the filter in a five gallon bucket, dumped the entire contents of my $9.00 filter clean in and then started to fill the bucket.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
I realized that with the filter in the bucket I would propbably not even use 2 gal of water and didn't need to use the entire contents of the bottle. Arrrgh.
However, my filter is now very clean.
And the skin on my hands is peeling off. I didn't realize the filter cleaner caused leaprosy?
Next month, I'm only using 1/2 a bottle.