A novel magnetic solid-phase extraction approach was proposed for extraction of potential residues of tetracyclines (TCs) in tap and river water samples, based on Fe3O4@SiO2@FeO magnetic nanocomposite. Characterized results showed that the received Fe3O4SiO2@FeO had distinguished magnetism and core-shell structure. Modified FeO nanoparticles with an similar to 5 nm size distribution were homogeneously dispersed on the surface of the silica shell. Owing to the strong surface affinity of Fe (II) toward TCs, the magnetic nano composite could be applied to efficiently extract three TCs antibiotics, namely, oxytetracycline, tetracycline and chlortetracycline from water samples. Several factors, such as sorbent amount, pH condition, adsorption and desorption time, desorption solvent, selectivity and sample volume, influencing the extraction performance of TCs were investigated and optimized. The developed method showed excellent linearity (R > 0.9992) in the range of 0.133-333 mu g L-1, under optimized conditions. The limits of detection were between 0.027 and 0.107 mu g L-1 for oxytetracycline, tetracycline and chlortetracycline, respectively. The feasibility of this method was evaluated by analysis of tap and river water samples. The recoveries at the spiked concentration levels ranged from 91.0% to 104.6% with favorable reproducibility (RSD < 4%). (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.