Haydite and sorption functional media (SFM),made of clinoptilolite tailings, were used as filter media forbiological aerated filter (BAF) to treat synthetic wastewater in parallel. The aim of this work was toevaluate impact of SFM on the removal of ammonia nitrogen in a biological aerated filter reactor underammonium nitrogen shock loads. It could be demonstrated that: (1) the BAF with SFMpresented higherammonia nitrogen removal efficiency than that with haydite; (2) during the phase of higher influentconcentrations SFMs were collecting ammonia nitrogen and can buffer ammonia nitrogen loads anddampen the effluent concentration of ammonia nitrogen; (3) when the influent concentration decreasesammonia nitrogen will desorb from the SFM and can be utilized by the nitrifying bacteria growing on theSFM. Therefore, with the SFM application existing BAF unites can be upgraded and the stability of theoperation process of BAF can be improved significantly.