Toadstool Leather Coral Placement (pics)

[boogie1986]

Hi,

I just purchased my very first corals. Blue mushroom corals and a Toadstool Leather. Both are doing wonderfully, except I have a question about the placement of the Toadstool. I have it placed in between the crevice of two rocks. The coral's tendril sway gently with the current of the tank, but I'm a little worried about the rock that the leather came attached to. It has already been knocked over by a curious Mexican Turbo snail, and I have been worried ever since. Can Toadstool leathers we buried in the sand or do they need something that their base can grow over?

I have included some pics of the coral upclose:

Here is another of how the coral is positioned. It's kind of hard to see, but the rock that it's attached to is very small and wedged in between two bigger rocks. :

Should I move the rock and bury it in the sand bed, or just try to find a more secure location. It's so top heavy that I dont think it will stay without tipping over..

Any advice would be greatly welcomed and appreciated

Thanks

 

[fsn77]

It will attach to the other rocks it is touching anywhere on the stalk. I put ours in a crevice, before I knew it would make multiple attachments, and now it's attached to 3 different rocks -- one on the front of the stalk, one on the back of the stalk, and one on the base. Now, I'd have to cut it away IF I wanted / needed to move it. We're happy with where it's at, so that's where it'll stay.

You can put it down in the sand (perhaps with some more rocks touching the base) and it'll make more attachments, if you're worried about it constantly falling over and you don't have a crevice where you'd like to have it stay. Or, you can make a sleeve out of PVC pipe, fill in the gaps with small pieces of rock, and place it down in the sand, let it sit for awhile and it'll attach to the smaller rocks and / or PVC sleeve. Then, place the PVC sleeve and all wherever you'd like it in your rock work.

Either way, it won't take long for it to make additional attachments if the stalk is touching something.