What to do with mushroom coral?

[poesraven]

I bought a decorator crab about a week ago. When I got him home, I realized he had tiny corals stuck on him. There were about 7-8 and they were a darkish purple color. I have a FOWLR and know absolutely nothing about corals.
A couple of days ago, he started dropping some of the corals. My husband put the two that were dropped on top of a piece of LR. They opened up from about the size of a dime to the size of a half dollar. Two more were laying on the sand today & we put those on LR and they opened up as well. I was able to identify them from a picture on this site & they are spotted mushroom.
Are these going to just die in my tank? My tank is only 3 months old with the original lights that came with the setup.

 

[buddahjon]

i think the first thing we need to know is what kind of lighting do you have? also what kind of fish?

 

[poesraven]

I just have the regular fluorescent lighting.
My creatures are a flame hawkfish, orange spotted goby, astrea snails, a few red tip hermits, 2 dwarf blue leg hermits, sally lightfoot, decorator crab, bumble bee snail & a choc. chip star.

 

[buddahjon]

i dont have any suggestions for you, as i am kind of new. but i figured id ask this to help the fish wizards help you out

 

[buddahjon]

i do have a guess tho. im pretty sure that your lighting isnt sufficent for corals... i could be wrong as i am not very knowledgable on reefstuffs. but if thats the conclusion from a few other people i certainly know you can trade these corals away on the board here or possibly at your lfs

 

[rbaby]

Unfortunately, I'm one of those noobs who end up buying the wrong equipment the first time around...and end up regretting it later on.
With my first set up, I could only get 13W of power max...but, with adequate care, my mushroom has grown from the size of a quarter, to the size of a tennis ball in a matter of months (mind-you, 13Watts is NOT a lot for 10-12 gallons).
If you plan on upgrading your lights at all, even just some PC's/50'50's, I'd recommend spot-feeding them until you get those lights.
There is a product called Phytoplankton, your LFS will know what it is (don't trust ***** or Petsmart or any of those though)...just feed them that once, maybe twice a week and they should do well until you get better lights.
If you have no plans of keeping them, take them off the live rock if they are still unattached and bring them back to the LFS for some store credit.