This study was conducted to understand the water chemistry during andafter establishment of nitrification in a recirculating system.The resultsindicated:1.The activation of Nitrobacter population took 18 days to reach equilibriumwhile 3.7 g NaNO2 and 100ml of nitrifying bacteria were inoculated.It alsoshowed that more than one week was needed to activate Nitrosomonas by dailyaddition of 1.5 g NH4Cl and another 50 ml nitrifying bacteria to this system.A system with better efficiency of nitrification would reduce the risk of highnitrite toxicity even though a large quantity of ammonia-N was loaded tothe system.2.The nitrification could be completed within 24 hrs with different amountsof NH4Cl from 0.3 g to 6.0 g in this conditioned recirculating system.It tooklonger time to converse from ammonia-N to NO2-N,and from NO2-N to NO3-Nwith the increasing amount of NH4Cl.