Kinetics of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) reaction in marine anammox bacterial culture was first investigated. The nitrogen removal performance of the reactor was compared with prediction of Monod model, modified Stover-Kincannon model, first-order and the Grau second-order substrate removal models. Based on calculations, Monod model, modified Stover-Kincannon model and the Grau second-order model proved to be more appropriate to describe the nitrogen removal kinetics of the reactor than first-order model with high determination coefficients of 0.993, 0.993 and 0.991, respectively. According to the modified Stover-Kincannon model, the maximal substrate removal rate (r(m)) and saturation rate constant (K-B) were suggested as 7.37 and 6.41 g N/L/d, respectively. In addition, in light of the Monod model, the saturation concentration (K-s) and the maximal specific substrate removal rate constant (R-m) were determined to be 0.107 g/L and 0.952 g N/g MLVSS/d, respectively. Moreover, model evaluation was carried out by assessing the linear correlation between measured and predicted values. Both kinetics study and model evaluation showed that Monod model, modified Stover-Kincannon model and the Grau second-order substrate removal models could be used to describe the kinetic behavior or design of the marine anammox reactor. (C) 2013, The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. All rights reserved.