Enrichment of microbial functional consortium is critical to strengthen the performance of bio-electrochemical devices for treating industrial wastewaters. This study described a newly enrichment approach for electrochemically active iron reducing bacteria (IRB) through dosing Fe(III) into a MEC combined anaerobic reactor (R1) for dye wastewater treatment. After 51 days operation, reactor R1 presented the highest performance for the degradation of organic matter and dye as compared to the reference reactors without Fe(III). Subsequently, five isolates were obtained from the anodic biofilm of R1, in which a novel IRB related to Aeromonas hydrophila was selected as a model strain due to its highest Fe(III) reducing ability cyclic voltammetry and microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology showed that the model strain has the electrochemical activity and electricity generation capability. After inoculating this model strain, the decolorization of three dyes also reached over 90% at an initial concentration of 100 mg/L. This study might provide a novel method to enrich electrochemically active IRB in the bio-electrochemical reactor for treating industrial wastewater. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.