# Looking for help identifying algae



## Tamakun (Mar 30, 2008)

Hi all; I'm trying to clean out my fishtank of this strange red algae. Or maybe it's a diatom, I'm not sure, since looking up "red algae" only seems to bring up hair algaes.

Anyhow, this algae is fairly slow-growing but it's against the glass of my tank, so the shrimp (and even the snails) can't seem to get rid of it. The only way I've figured out how to remove it so far is with a razor.

Can anyone help me ID this, and if you happen to know what it is, how to treat it? Thanks in advance!


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Does it come off in sheets, or is it stuck on there? If it is the first it may be a type of cynobacteria. I had some a dew years ago, but could find no info on a red versions of cynobacteria. Perhaps mine was something else, but had all the properties of Cyano. At any rate, it looked a lot like yours.


----------



## youngt3 (Oct 17, 2017)

From the look of it, seems to resemble a red algae (not always red in color)
here is a link of it:

https://www.thesprucepets.com/aquarium-algae-1379979

https://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/red-algae.html

Also, does not seems like Cyanobacteria or red slime algae. From understanding this type is normally appear in salt water aquarium

https://blog.marinedepot.com/2015/06/red-slime-how-to-prevent-and-remove-cyanobacteria.html


----------



## Tamakun (Mar 30, 2008)

Yeah - this algae is definitely stuck hard on there. The only way I can get it off is with a razor, and because it's so low (and in the substrate) I feel it's near-impossible to remove it all without some heavy focus on it.

However, that might just have to be the solution!

Thanks for your replies, both of you, I have some research (and scraping) to do


----------

