When corals consume acetate.

[Miami Reef]

When a coral or sponge consumes acetate, what nutrient or organic substance do they gain?

Is it like an amino acid, carb, or something else?

Does the coral need to use Nitrogen and Phosphorus to consume the acetate?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Acetate as in acetic acid?

 

[Miami Reef]

Acetate as in acetic acid?

Yes, Sir!

 

[sixty_reefer]

Yes, Sir!

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that zooxanthellae can’t use dissolved organic carbon directly, just inorganic carbon forms.

 

[Miami Reef]

Corals can also directly use other organics such as acetate.

Click on Randy’s name to go to the thread he originally posted this in.

 

[TokenReefer]

I've heard this as well from another but I haven't read anything yet tbf

 

[Dan_P]

When a coral or sponge consumes acetate, what nutrient or organic substance do they gain?

Is it like an amino acid, carb, or something else?

Does the coral need to use Nitrogen and Phosphorus to consume the acetate?

Do coral consume acetate?

 

[Garf]

Oddly enough, I’ve started dabbling with vinegar today.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Click on Randy’s name to go to the thread he originally posted this in.

I’m not sure if Randy had a particular coral in mind, as some NPS corals might be able to use organic nutrients directly

 

[Miami Reef]

Oddly enough, I’ve started dabbling with vinegar today.

Why?

 

[Garf]

To feed corals through bacterial growth. I’ve also started tropic Marin trace A & K which appears to me to make sense. I’ve read coral can take up acetate directly but maybe unimportant. I’ve also turned off my UV, in for a penny, in for a pound

 

[Miami Reef]

To feed corals through bacterial growth. I’ve also started tropic Marin trace A & K which appears to me to make sense. I’ve read coral can take up acetate directly but maybe unimportant. I’ve also turned off my UV, in for a penny, in for a pound

Ha. This was my progression as well.

It took me a LONG time to give up my UV Sterilizer. I was mainly afraid of fish parasites, but I was pleasantly surprised by how my fish appeared the same without the sterilizer.

 

[Garf]

Ha. This was my progression as well.

It took me a LONG time to give up my UV Sterilizer. I was mainly afraid of fish parasites, but I was pleasantly surprised by how my fish appeared the same without the sterilizer.

In my last tank my UV bulb died through old age and never replaced it, saw no difference, that was always my plan on this tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Do coral consume acetate?

Yes, at least some do. Maybe all.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

When a coral or sponge consumes acetate, what nutrient or organic substance do they gain?

Is it like an amino acid, carb, or something else?

Does the coral need to use Nitrogen and Phosphorus to consume the acetate?

Acetate has many uses in organisms.

It can be oxidized with O2 to give energy plus CO2 and bicarbonate.

it can also be used as a building block to make larger biomolecules. Fatty acids are made from acetate as a building block, for example.

 

[Miami Reef]

Acetate has many uses in organisms.

It can be oxidized with O2 to give energy plus CO2 and bicarbonate.

it can also be used as a building block to make larger biomolecules. Fatty acids are made from acetate as a building block, for example.

Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you very much for this information!

I have another question, but this time it‘s about corals, amino acids, and nitrogen.

In a ULN environment, where nitrates are 0ppm, but there’s ammonia input from a healthy fish load, can corals synthesize all the amino acids they need by using ammonia?

What’s the primary purpose of amino acids? There are many different amino acids on the market, but are there amino acids that are more important for Acropora than others?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you very much for this information!

I have another question, but this time it‘s about corals, amino acids, and nitrogen.

In a ULN environment, where nitrates are 0ppm, but there’s ammonia input from a healthy fish load, can corals synthesize all the amino acids they need by using ammonia?

What’s the primary purpose of amino acids? There are many different amino acids on the market, but are there amino acids that are more important for Acropora than others?

Ammonia is suitable for any use that a coral would make of nitrate. There may be other nitrogen-containing chemicals that a coral cannot make itself and needs to get it in foods. Aspartic acid was suggested by scientists long ago and I discussed it in a 2002 article, but I have not followed more recent research on that particular question (see below).

When reefers dose amino acids, it is primarily with the idea to supply nitrogen in a form that is less useful to pests such as algae, and partly to supply useful amino acids that are not just replacements for what may be a nitrogen source like ammonia.

Aquarium Chemistry: The Chemical and Biochemical Mechanisms of Calcification

All reef aquarists are versed in the fact that such organisms remove calcium and carbonate from the water column in order to provide materials for calcification. Exactly how calcification takes place, however, is rarely considered.

reefs.com

Regardless of the mechanisms involved, the need for these organics in calcification is easily verified. Allemand et al14 have studied the role of such materials in Stylophora pistillata. Interestingly, they find that inhibitors of protein synthesis reduce the rate of calcification considerably. For example, reducing protein synthesis by 60-85% reduced calcification by 50%. A similar result was found by inhibiting glycoprotein synthesis. These results did not come about because of reduced metabolism, but rather by specific effects of reduced protein and glycoprotein synthesis. The most important conclusion in their paper may be that the rate of skeletogenesis may be more limited by the rate of biosynthesis and exocytosis of organic matrix proteins rather than by calcium deposition.

Interestingly, the apparently large need for a particular amino acid (aspartic acid) to synthesize these proteins is satisfied by external sources, not by either the coral itself or the zooxanthellae. For this reason, it might be interesting to see what added aspartic acid does to calcification rates in reef tanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here's a typical paper that shows corals can take up acetate:

Lipogenesis in the intact coral Pocillopora capitata and its isolated zooxanthellae: Evidence for a light-driven carbon cycle between symbiont and host - Marine Biology

Surface tissue of the reef coral Pocillopora capitata contained approximately 34% lipid on a dry weight basis. Of this, 75% was storage lipid (wax ester and triglyceride) and 25% structural (phospholipid, galactolipid, etc.). Based on chlorophyll a: lipid ratios of intact coral and isolated...

link.springer.com

"Coral tips and isolated zooxanthellae were incubated with sodium acetate-1-14C in light and dark to obtain lipogenic rates and proportions of fatty acids and lipid classes synthesized. The rate of lipid synthesis from acetate-1-14C by intact coral was stimulated three-fold in the light (1200 lux), which indicated that the majority of coral lipogenesis occurred in the zooxanthellae. Intact coral triglycerides contained ca. 68% of the 14C-activity and wax esters ca. 21%."