One design brings the water in the top of a container through a "header" which distributes the water evenly. The filter "media" start with fine sand on the top and then becomes gradually coarser sand in a number of layers followed by gravel on the bottom, in gradually larger sizes. The top sand physically removes particles from the water. The job of the subsequent layers is to support the finer layer above and provide efficient drainage.
As particles become trapped in the media, the differential pressure across the bed increases. Periodically, a backwash may be initiated to remove the solids trapped in the bed. During backwash, flow is directed in the opposite direction from normal flow. In multi-media filters, the layers in the media re-stratify due to density differences prior to resuming normal filtration. Multimedia filter can remove particles down to 10-25 microns.