I'm about to rescape our shrimp tank (sorry if it's hard to see, ripped up a bunch of crypts and made quite a mess) and for months there's been a mostly self-contained area covered in what looks like really fluffy brown algae.
I let it grow for awhile because it grew very slowly and the shrimp loved to pick around in it, any ideas if it's just a type of algae? It started to spread to another rock recently but otherwise has not spread out of control.
I kind of want to keep a patch of It in the new setup if possible, anyone able to ID it?
Brown algae isn't harmful in itself but it does mean something is out of balance, like high nitrates and areas with little or no water movement.