I saw two toadstools attached to a rock at my LFS for $45. My toadstool was given to me by a friend, and I don't know how much he paid. Another friend of mine started with two toadstooles and now has like six lol, so maybe you can even get a frag from someone.
I've had mine for about 8 months, and paid approx. $50. It was only about 4" tall when I bought it, but now it's doubled in size and growing even more! The top used to measure about 4-5" across and now is at least a foot.
They are finicky sometimes, mine didnt open for 3 weeks after i added it, then it was fine. If its been a lillte longer then usual without a water change it wont open. Grows quickly though.
always look for the feeder polyps . when fine are happy you can always see them stick out of the tops of the feelers
another kinda bad pick. forgot to clean the lense before i took these.
I'll tell you what I'm going to do for you. Instead of putting the thread here I'll bump it up for you so the masses can see it. We used to have a Fish of the week or Coral of the week series and NM reef did a very good write up on the sarcophyton coral or leather that you are asking about. So look for it to come back up.
Thomas