Two competitive strategies, fed-batch and sequencing-batch cultivation, were compared in cost-effective biomass production of a high lipid microalgae, Micractinium inermum NLP-F014 using a blended wastewater medium. For fed-batch cultivations, additional nutrient was supplemented at day 2 (FB1) or consecutively added at day 2 and 4 (FB2). Through inoculum size test, 1.0 g-DCW L-1 was selected for the sequencing-batch cultivation (SB) where about 65% of culture was replaced with fresh medium every 2 days. Both fed-batch cultivations showed the maximum biomass productivity of 0.95 g-DCW L-1 d(-1), while average biomass productivity in SB was slightly higher as 0.96 +/- 0.08 g-DCW L-1 d(-1). Furthermore, remained concentrations of organics (426 mg-CODL-1), total nitrogen (15.4 mg-NL-1) and phosphorus (0.6 mg-PL-1) in SB were much lower than those of fed-batch conditions. The results suggested that SB could be a promising strategy to cultivate M. inermum NLP-F014 with the blended wastewater medium. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.