Abstract: In order to understand the colonization process of periphyton community in an estuarine water body and obtain the maturation time, a landscape lake in Shanghai Lingang was studied by using glass slide method in the winter of 2015. A total of 4 classes, 37 genera and 65 species were identified. Bacillariophyta contributed 69.57% of the total periphyton, followed by Chlorophyta (25.95%). The total abundance of periphyton reached to the peak at the 27th day, and ranged from 1.13×10⁴ to 500×10⁴ cm^-2. The abundance of Bacillariophyta peaked on the 25th day, and ranged from 1.13×10⁴ to 299.05×10⁴ cm^-2. According to results of the clustering analysis (CA), the non-metric multidimensional scaling (N-MDS) analysis and analysis of similarities (ANOSIM), the colonization process of periphyton was divided into 5 stages. And the main dominant taxa in each stage were changed as Nitzschia/Synedra/Fragilaria → Nitzschia/Synedra → Nitzschia → Nitzschia/Stigeoclonium → Gomphonema/Stigeoclonium. Besides, the results of dynamic change of pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) fluorescence measurements in periphyton community showed that the change of maximal photochemical efficiency (F_v/F_m) was consistent with the total abundance of periphyton and it could be used as a potential indicator to show the colonization process of periphyton. It has been found in the study, we found that the periphyton community gradually matured at 3.5 to 4 weeks after hanging slides and it is better to conduct sampling at this time.