[Pegasus]

Hello Everyone. I've been reading the board here for a very long time and figure it's about time I add my two cents worth.

I find that using netting secured with elastic bands is best for securing mushrooms to a rock. Also using gel crazy glue is the best for SPS corals as the softies I have attempted to frag over the years tend to shrink at the base and slip out of the glue molding. The regular crazy glue doesn't hold as well as the gel.

As for securing a colt coral, I haven't had much luck tieing or sewing it down. The coral tends to rip itself free. Also, colt corals secrete alot of mucus and glueing doesn't work either. Although, I haven't tried glueing it in place and then using netting to hold it down yet either. Nor have I tried placing it between two rocks. If you are ordering these from J&L's or some other distributor, the colt and mushrooms should come on a base. You can use a marine safe putty to secure the base to your rock work. The candy cane will come as a branch that is the exoskeleton of the animals and you can just place this in your rock work. Or you can use the putty if you need to.

With your lighting, you would probably be best to place your LPS corals about mid tank and slowly raise them up. I am old school still thinking of watts per gallon and do not know the par readings for T5's let alone for my VHO's. But the 4 or so watts you have is only at the surface and deminishes rapidly. In my experience, your lighting is minimum and your LPS corals will have to end up close to the top.

I agree with Brad that you are alright adding this many corals at once. The rule of one tends to relate to fish as they produce alot more waste than a coral does.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Larry