This study is focused on the biodegradation of saline tannery effluent by identified halotolerant bacterial consortia in a bench-scale reaction calorimeter. A satisfactory agreement was observed between oxygen uptake rate profiles and heat flux-time curves confirming that, under strict aerobic conditions, calorimetry and respirometry provided the same information. Oxycalorific equivalent determined from our experiments was found to agree well to the theoretical value. A linear relationship was observed between chemical oxygen demand consumption and total metabolic heat production. The study confirmed that the heat release profiles could be used as an indirect parameter for online monitoring of the degradation process. The effect of salt (NaCl) inhibition on acetate and ammonia (NH4+) uptake by the halobacterial consortia is also reported in this paper.