Cutting and moving a toadstool?

[Brnono]

Hi, I am brand-new to the saltwater aquarium world. After months of studying, I set up a one gallon jar just for fun and experimenting about two months ago. Initially, I just wanted to do a bit of live rock and "pest" inverts, maybe some macroalgae, but I decided to try a little bit of soft coral too, to see what will happen. This week, I went to my LFS wanting a discosoma, but they didn't have any I really liked. I asked for a recommendation for a cheap, hardy soft coral. I ended up buying a small piece of rubble with two corals attached. I misunderstood the woman at the store because I thought she said the corals were a toadstool and GPS. Well, it's not GPS, but I think Rhodactis indosinensis. Can anyone confirm this?

But my more important question is about how close the two corals are. Their feet are literal millimeters apart, and the mushroom is crowding out the toadstool (see the second pic, taken at night when they were more closed up). I would prefer to have the toadstool in the back, where there is more flow. So far, only a few polyps occassionally open up on it. Also, I realize that a toadstool can get really big, and a small jar might not be the ideal home, but like I said, I'm doing a cheap experiment.

The piece of rock they are on is thin and can easily be snapped by hand, but I don't think I can break it at the right point.
So my question is, what should I do? Should I leave it as it is and see what happens? If I try to break the rock, I am afraid of damaging both corals. I was thinking about cutting the toadstool and trying to get it to grow elsewhere. But having studied how to frag leathers, I assume it will just grow back from the stump (or perhaps the mushroom will grow over it?) Thanks for any advice/ideas!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Its fine, they won't harm each other. But yes, if you cut the leather, both pieces will start to grow. With that said, the toadstool should not be lying down like that, and while the mushroom is a good choice for your jar, the toadstool is not. Toadstool is an easy hardy coral yes, but it needs more light than the mushroom, and it thrives on good water flow, which I don't think you can achieve in the jar, it will die without flow.

Very interesting idea though, I hope it works out.

 

[Brnono]

Its fine, they won't harm each other. But yes, if you cut the leather, both pieces will start to grow. With that said, the toadstool should not be lying down like that, and while the mushroom is a good choice for your jar, the toadstool is not. Toadstool is an easy hardy coral yes, but it needs more light than the mushroom, and it thrives on good water flow, which I don't think you can achieve in the jar, it will die without flow.

Very interesting idea though, I hope it works out.

Thanks. I was playing around with it a bit more yesterday. For flow, I use an air pump with a regulator on it. When I turned the flow up, the toadstool got bigger and lots of polyps came out, while the mushroom shrank by more than half. I think I am going to try and split the rock by scoring it with a blade in between the two corals and place the toadstool closer to the airline to see if that works. But if the toadstool does die, will it be a slow process? I suppose a dead coral will foul the water pretty quickly. In my planted freshwater tank, I am used to having whatever dies getting eaten pretty quickly by snails and shrimp, but it probably won't work like that in this mini reef.