This study was carried out to investigate the ability of an artificial microalgal-bacterial consortium to remediate an oilfield wastewater using laboratory-scale fluidized bed reactors (FBRs) under lighting. The consortium consists of an oil-degrading bacterial community and a microalgae, Scenedesmus obliquus GH2. The microbes were immobilized onto Ca-alginate beads and filled to the FBRs. The influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen, NH3-N and oil concentration was investigated over 40 operational days. The synergistic relationship in the algal-bacterial microcosm was clearly demonstrated, since for the four parameters tested, the highest removal was recorded in the system inoculated with both algae and bacteria. In the algal-bacterial FBR, at 16h HRT, the average effluent concentrations of COD, NH3-N and oil were 92, 24 and 4.8mg/L, respectively, corresponding to removal efficiencies of 70.8%, 61.2% and 84.2%, respectively. The effluent could meet the grade 2 as required by the national discharge standard of China. However, the effluent quality of the bacterial- or algal-only case could not satisfy the grade 3 discharge standard at 16h HRT. The algal-bacterial biomass exhibits lowest effluent microtoxicity and highest dehydrogenase activity in comparison with bacterial-only and algal-only cases. This study reveals that the consortium containing dual microbial species has potential for microbial remediation of oilfield wastewater.