Is this cyanobacteria?

[Donnyreefer]

Pretty new tank here going on two months. Phosphates in the 0.07 range with 3 nitrates. Is this cyanobacteria? Would I dose some chemi clean or red stain remover? Any help is much appreciated

 

[Dan_P]

Pretty new tank here going on two months. Phosphates in the 0.07 range with 3 nitrates. Is this cyanobacteria? Would I dose some chemi clean or red stain remover? Any help is much appreciated

I am in doubt about what to call this. The red color tempts me to declare cyanobacteria but morphology of growth say not. It is not filmy but fuzzy.

 

[PolypPocket]

Looks a little more like “red hair turf algae” which after doing a ton of researching is a macro in this case. I have something very similar growing in my tank on the live rock but have had a really hard time ID-ing it exactly by searches online. But from what I’ve gathered it tends to love new tanks with excess nutrients (sometimes still in the cycling process feeding off ammonia or whatever) and really takes off during that period. I think it’s pretty but I know most people wouldn’t agree.
You could put in a bunch of other more desirable macro algae to compete by taking up all that excess instead. I filled my tank with macros recently and the red turf algae growth stopped.

This was when I first set up the tank before I put any other macros in and you can see it covering the rock in the center and in a few other places. Second photo shows the tank now, a month later and that same rock at the front left. It’s still there but more patchy and receding, and has disappeared on all the other rocks. The trochus snails have also been working on it.

 

[mmorrison55]

If it siphons or blows off the rocks easy, I’d say it’s cyano.