What is this red nuisance algae?

[BrettDS]

It seems like this red algae is fighting with GHA to take over my frag tank. (You can see a bit of the GHA in the background)

Unlike the GHA this algae is stiff and becomes very slimy when I tear it in attempts to remove it.

 

[Tgreen182]

I have the same stuff growing like a carpet on my turbo snails. I thought it was pretty looking until I just saw your frag rack. Following along...

 

[BrettDS]

Lol... Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool at first when I first saw it on my live rock in my display tank, in fact I originally tried to encourage it to grow and even transferred some to my refugium when I first set it up.

Oddly enough, though, both this algae and the GHA have all but completely died off in my display tank and the refugium, but they're both going strong in the frag tank. I'm debating moving the few frags I have somewhere else temporarily and tearing down the frag tank and scrubbing off the rack. The one hesitation I have is that the frag rack is starting to get some coralline algae and I'd hate to set back it's growth because these nuisance algaes don't grow where the coralline algae is.

 

[Tgreen182]

The trade off is hard, I'm in the same boat. I like how it looks but don't want an infestation. It's been in my tank 5 months and hasn't spread to rocks. I don't have any GHA, and nobody in my clean up crew seems to eat it. I'll wait for a positive ID before I scrub off my turbos.

 

[Bent]

Cotton candy algae looks like to me.

http://www.melevsreef.com/node/458

 

[zeebies]

Looks like gracilaria.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Looks like gracilaria.

x2