It all started with Eddie's yogurt. He loves this
particular brand, and so over the years many yogurt
cups have accumulated in the cupboards and cabinets of
GARF. 
This semester, I set out with two goals: find
new ways to propagate coral and get rid of those old
yogurt cups.
Well, one thing led to another and now I have a great
way to propagate mushroom coral and now I've used up
all our old yogurt cups, and I'm trying to encourage
Eddie to eat more yogurt- those containers are very
useful.
Mushrooms are a beautiful soft coral, they are hardy
and colorful. However, mushrooms can be difficult to
propagate. They take a long time to reproduce simply
by fission, dividing in two, and cutting individual
mushrooms up into pieces and putting them into a tank
to attach is usually a wasted effort, because the
pieces will float into the pumps and be destroyed, or
disappear under some dark rock.
To prevent this, I put the mushrooms in the bottom of
a yogurt container. Of course, you don't have to use
a Western Family brand vanilla yogurt cup. Any
container will do as long as its made of a smooth,
nontoxic plastic. Make the container about half an
inch tall. 
Fill the container with rubble, or large pieces of
gravel. I use CaribSea rough grade. These should be
clean, meaning that they start out with no algae or
anything else attached to them. If you're using fresh
gravel, be sure to rinse it off first. The mushroom
pieces will attach themselves to these pieces.
Next, get several full-grown mushrooms. Cut the
mushroom head off of the rock leaving a piece of the
stalk behind. This stalk will regenerate, growing a
new mushroom. You can use these pieces as brood
stock.
You'll want to cut the mushroom head into pie-shaped
pieces. It is important for each piece to have some
of the central stalk. This stalk contains the stomach
of the animal and is the part that attaches to the
rubble.
Place these pieces in your container. Then, put a
piece of bridal veil netting over the entire
container. Use a rubber band to hold this covering
over the container. This bridal veil netting will
prevent the mushroom pieces from being swept out by
the current.
This entire container should be put somewhere that
will be free of strong current and light. The
mushrooms will attach fastest in a relatively quiet
corner of the aquarium.
For me, the next part is the hardest. You have to
wait 3 to 4 weeks before all the pieces are attached.
Do not try to skimp on time and open the container
early. You'll en d up with just a bunch of loose
mushroom pieces. Patience is a virtue!
Finally, you can take your mushrooms out. I use
SallyJo's super glue, a reef-safe cyanoacrylete
adhesive, that is available for sale here at GARF, to
glue them onto plugs. These plugs can then be placed
into an aquarium where they will grow into adult
mushrooms.
Build up your mushrooms and other soft coral with this
GARF's soft coral special: 7 hardy soft corals for
$100.
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