The hormetic effects of ionic liquids (ILs) were paid more ecological attentions. However, the time-dependent hormetic effects of ILs and their mixtures remained to be studied. In this paper, the time-dependent toxicities of five single ILs, 1-ethyl-, 1-butyl-, 1-hexyl-, 1-octyl-, and 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorides (named as [C(2)mim]Cl, [C(4)mim]Cl, [C(6)mim]Cl, [C(8)mim]Cl, and [C(12)mim]Cl, respectively), and their five-component mixtures to Vibrio qinghaiensis sp.-Q67 were determined at five exposure time points. For single ILs, [C(2)mim]Cl displayed significant hormetic effects at 2, 4, 8, and 12 h; and [C(4)mim]Cl exhibited significant hormetic effects at 4,8 and 12h; while [C(6)mim]Cl, [C(8)mim]Cl and [C(12)mim]Cl have not significant hormetic effects. At the same time point, the longer the side chain is, the larger the inhibition at high concentration is, and the less the stimulation at low concentration is. Meanwhile, the maximum stimulation effects were found between 4 and 8 h. All six IL mixtures designed by uniform design ray showed significant hormetic effects at 8 and 12 h. By means of the variable selection and modeling method based on the prediction (VSMP), it was found that the higher the concentration of [C(2)mim]Cl is, the stronger the mixture hormetic effect is and the higher the concentration of [C(12)mim]Cl is, the weaker the hormetic effect is. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.