is it slimy or stuck to rock ? if it is hard then it more likey coraline alage but if you say that it was not there yesterday then it might be some sort of algae bloom.
Looks like the stuff I have been battling. But i can't really tell in your pic..
Whatever it is your's doesn't look to serious so I wouldn't worry to much about it yet!
do a google search for "weird red algae ID".
I just found out mine is called Red turf algae..
It is very invasive and could grow over your LR and choke the rock from being able to filter the water. choke out your zoas too.
I hate anything that isn't coralline algae so I'm on a mission to get rid of mine.
Ive been reading about soaking the rock in a peroxide solution to kill it off.
But before I try that ..... I'm going to try raising the Magnesium to 1500 and taking care of the usual suspects... Phosphate /NitRate/ALK/CA / PH
After doing research and plenty of image check , it is true Kathy!!! Red coraline it is! I'm also reading that it is a good thing so I won't tamper with it thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Do the scrape test to be sure, most of the undesirable algae like red slime, hair algae definitely pops up overnight. Coralline definitely is not a fast like that and especially on rocks IME. My tank walls are covered with coralline and it still doesn't grow on the rocks and existing growth on rocks doesn't even spread much.
I scrape the front of the glass every few weeks and tiny spots of coralline growth is visible again with a week.
hm, more than once I had something that looked like that pop up and for the longest thought it was red coraline. Well, at some point I decided to rub it and what do you know...some came off!!!
It's nothing that has grown outside of a few heavily aerated patches on only 1 rock (it has tons of pockets , that's the only major diff I see).
But when I rub it now...there is no residue. Go figure.
Either way, it hasn't bottered me and it virtually acts as coraline now anyway. It's also pretty.