Abstract: A system for water treatment includes the steps of superchlorinating the water to a level sufficient to destroy bacterial content in the water very rapidly, passing the water through a sand filter in which the medium includes beads of magnesium hydroxide and subjecting different portions of the filtered water to differing degrees of filtration by an activated charcoal filter, whereby to remove a sufficient proportion of the chlorine added to the water to reduce the residual chlorine to a level sufficient to maintain the water sterile without substantially influencing the taste of the water. Preferably, the sand and charcoal filters are disposed horizontally, and the depths of the filter beds are graded horizontally to provide the differing degrees of filtration to the water.