Could Fe(11) mediated autotrophic denitrification happen in a reef tank?

[Jon_W79]

Could Fe (11) mediated autotrophic denitrification happen in a reef tank if someone is carbon dosing? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096483051630422X

 

[Ron Reefman]

bump

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Could Fe (11) mediated autotrophic denitrification happen in a reef tank if someone is carbon dosing? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096483051630422X

It might. We just talk about "denitrification" when dosing organic compounds, but don't really have much info on what species are doing it, with or without organic dosing, or what the molecular level details are. There are lots of different processes that may be going in.

I would speculate that the iron process described specifically in that paper is a very minor contributor in a reef tank because the amount of iron is so very low compared to nitrate, and it requires the iron to be used up to (converted from ferrous to ferric iron):


10Fe++ + 2NO3- + 24 H2O ---> N2 + 10 Fe(OH)3 + 18 H+

This full paper talks about it in marine sediments:

Evidence for the Existence of Autotrophic Nitrate-Reducing Fe(II)-Oxidizing Bacteria in Marine Coastal Sediment

Evidence for the Existence of Autotrophic Nitrate-Reducing Fe(II)-Oxidizing Bacteria in Marine Coastal Sediment

Nitrate-reducing Fe(II)-oxidizing microorganisms were described for the first time ca. 20 years ago. Most pure cultures of nitrate-reducing Fe(II) oxidizers can oxidize Fe(II) only under mixotrophic conditions, i.e., when an organic cosubstrate is provided. A small number of nitrate-reducing...

aem.asm.org

 

[Jon_W79]

If something could happen in someone's reef tank like what's in the paper I linked, I would guess it would be a very strong contributor to dropping iron levels.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If something could happen in someone's reef tank like what's in the paper I linked, I would guess it would be a very strong contributor to dropping iron levels.

Might be, yes.

 

[taricha]

If I remember right, @Dan_P found Iron depleted very quickly from tank water (expected) and mostly accumulated rapidly in the skimmer (not so expected).
Not sure if that observation relates here. The Fe in the OP paper sounds like it's precipitating, which makes it sound like it's not getting to the skimmer.