Desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) is an important membrane technology for areas where freshwater is limited. One of the keys to making RO operate in an efficacious manner is to provide adequate pretreatment for the desalination process. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of conventional water treatment processes for treatment of seawater through pilot studies. Specifically, the paper focuses on the impact of number of filter stages, granular media configuration and coagulant dose. Topics covered include: raw water source; pilot plant description; filter media configurations; coagulant dose evaluation; impact of media design on filtered water quality; filter maturation time; impact of filtration rate on filtered water quality and water production; and, comparison of single and two-stage filtration. Includes tables, figures.