ID on red spiky stuff

[Kaylenna]

I noticed recently that some of my java moss seems to have very bright red spiky things growing from some main stems.  Most of it is near the top of the tank (and therefore, the light).  Is it an algae of some sort?  Should I leave it be or pluck it all out?

[zn30]

Sorry unable to shed any light on this for you, however I thought they were cherry shrimp, LOL. Also at first glance the weed looked like elodea, if it was elodea maybe the red spikes would be the roots my elodea roots are always white though. 

Interested to see what it is hopefully someone can ID this for you soon.

[Kaylenna]

No, it's definitely not a shrimp!  Its rather like tiny snips of red thread - it's a very zoomed in picture.

[jayc]

It's algae.

 

 

[zn30]

12 hours ago, Kaylenna said:

No, it's definitely not a shrimp!  Its rather like tiny snips of red thread - it's a very zoomed in picture.

Yeah didn't think they were shrimp, you would ID them yourself?. As you say it's very zoomed in hence I stated looking like elodea.

Added this link on the subject of red algae as stated on the above post by @jayc http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-health/freshwater-conditions/aquarium-freshwater-algae.aspx

A small snippet of info, hope this helps.

[jayc]

Here is an older (1996) article on red algae.

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

However, Black Beard Algae (BBA) despite the name can actually be reddish.

Red or Black they are both very similar and can be treated using the same methods.

[Kaylenna]

Thank you guys.   I think I've stumbled upon both articles before and am quite familiar with BBA (argh!), but this stuff looked different from all the other types I've battled.  It's VERY red - like what we'd call "fire engine" red in the US... which I realized doesn't quite apply here in AU since I've seen yellow fire engines. 

Anyways... I seem to be able to sorta keep the algae (the rest, not just the funky spiky red stuff) to a lowish level, but not get rid of it altogether. 

Do most of you just deal?  Or do some of you have nifty magic tricks and are algae free?