A psychrophilic aerobic denitrifying bacterium, strain S1-1, was isolated from a biological aerated filter conducted for treatment of recirculating water in a marine aquaculture system. Strain S1-1 was preliminarily identified as Psychrobacter sp. based on the analysis of its 16S rRNA gene sequence, which showed 100% sequence similarity to that of Psychrobacter sp. TSBY-70. Strain S1-1 grew well either in high nitrate or high nitrite conditions with a removal of 100% nitrate or 63.50% nitrite, and the total nitrogen removal rates could reach to 46.48% and 31.89%, respectively. The results indicated that nitrate was mainly reduced in its logarithmic growth phase with a very low level accumulation of nitrite, suggesting that the aerobic denitrification process of strain S1-1 occurred mainly in this phase. The GC-MS results showed that N2O was formed as the major intermediate during the aerobic denitrifying process of strain S1-1. Finally, factors affecting the growth of strain S1-1 and its aerobic denitrifying ability were also investigated. Results showed that the optimum aerobic denitrification conditions for strain S1-1 were sodium succinate as carbon source, C/N ratio15, salinity 10 g/L NaCl, incubation temperature 20 degrees C and initial pH 6.5.