Cut a mushroom coral in half and within minutes you have two pieces of living tissue with no foot, no attachment, and no interest in staying where you put them. Soft corals and disc corals are some of the most rewarding species to propagate, but the window between a clean cut and successful reattachment is exactly when they are most vulnerable, and most likely to end up somewhere in the tank you did not intend.

The problem is not the cut and it is not the coral. It is containment. A newly fragged mushroom or ricordea placed loose on a plug or on the sandbed will tumble with the flow, curl into rockwork, land flesh-side down on substrate it cannot grip, or find its way into a powerhead before it has had any opportunity to attach. Losses at this stage are common, and almost entirely preventable.

The Reefphyto Hexagonal Mushroom Basket is a 3D printed PETG containment basket designed specifically for soft coral propagation and acclimation. The open hexagonal grid structure holds mushroom corals, ricordea, rhodactis, and similar disc corals securely inside while allowing full water circulation around the tissue, encouraging the polyp to extend, settle, and begin attaching to a plug or substrate placed at the base of the basket. At 81mm diameter and 67mm height, the basket is compact enough to position precisely within the tank without dominating available space. Printed in reef-safe PETG at our Welsh facility, black, £9.95.

With the coral contained and flow moving freely through the grid walls, the tissue settles in its own time rather than being disrupted by current. Mushrooms that previously drifted for days before attaching will typically make contact with a substrate surface and begin adhering within 24 to 72 hours when held in position. The basket removes the guesswork and the searching.

We have been designing practical reef tools in Wales since 2008, drawing on the same depth of experience we bring to our live cultures. Darren is available directly if you have questions about mushroom propagation technique, substrate selection, or getting difficult soft coral frags to attach reliably.

Give your soft coral frags a contained space to settle and stop losing pieces to the flow.

Mushroom corals and ricordea are among the most propagated soft corals in the reef hobby. They divide readily, recover quickly from cutting, and the resulting frags are genuinely valuable in the trading and swap community. But the propagation process has a consistent weak point that even experienced keepers run into repeatedly: getting a freshly cut disc coral to stay put long enough to attach.

Unlike SPS frags that can be glued to a plug immediately after cutting, soft coral frags have no hard skeleton to bond. A freshly cut mushroom is a disc of living tissue with no structural attachment point, and until it chooses to grip a surface, it goes where the flow takes it. The Reefphyto Hexagonal Mushroom Basket exists specifically to manage that transition period, keeping the frag in the right position, with the right conditions, until attachment happens.

Why Mushroom Corals Need a Different Approach to Propagation

SPS and LPS coral fragging is a well-documented process with established techniques. Cut, glue, place the frag is physically fixed from the moment it goes into the tank. Soft coral fragging works differently. The tissue needs time to contract, settle, and make a decision about where to attach. That process cannot be rushed and cannot be glued. What it can be is managed.

The most common failure modes when propagating mushrooms and ricordea without a containment basket are: the frag tumbling repeatedly in flow and abrading against rock or sand before attaching; the frag landing flesh-side down on an unsuitable substrate and forming a seal rather than a proper attachment; the frag finding its way into a powerhead or overflow; and the frag attaching somewhere entirely inconvenient, the back wall, the sump drain, the underside of a rock because that happened to be the surface it drifted against first.

A containment basket removes all of these failure modes by holding the frag in a defined space with a defined substrate surface at its base, so that when attachment happens, it happens in the right place.

Design and Specifications

The Reefphyto Hexagonal Mushroom Basket is 81mm in diameter and 67mm in height, providing a compact internal space that holds most mushroom coral and ricordea frags comfortably without excessive room for movement. The open hexagonal grid structure on the walls and base allows water to flow freely through the basket in all directions, maintaining the gentle circulation that soft corals need without creating the directed flow that would disturb a settling frag.

The basket is freestanding and can be placed on the sandbed, on a flat rock shelf, or in a sump. A frag plug or small piece of substrate placed inside the basket at the base provides the attachment surface, the coral settles onto it naturally as it relaxes and begins the attachment process.

Printed from reef-safe PETG at the Reefphyto facility in Wales. PETG is non-toxic, saltwater stable, and does not degrade or leach under aquarium conditions. The basket is reusable and can be cleaned between propagation cycles. Available in black, £9.95.

Which Corals the Mushroom Basket is Designed For

The basket is well suited to any soft coral frag that lacks a hard skeleton and therefore cannot be immediately glued to a plug. This includes Discosoma mushroom corals, Ricordea florida and Ricordea yuma, Rhodactis species, Amplexidiscus clam mushrooms, and similar disc-shaped soft corals. It can also be used during the acclimation period for newly purchased soft corals that arrive stressed and contracted containment within the basket protects the coral during the first 24 to 48 hours while it adjusts to new water conditions.

It is not designed for SPS frags, LPS frags, or any coral that can be directly attached to a frag plug. For those applications, the Reefphyto Coral Grow Out Discs, Coral Frag Rack Stand, or Coral Frag Rack Hex Stand are the appropriate tools.

How to Use the Mushroom Basket

Place a small frag plug, piece of rubble rock, or other suitable attachment substrate inside the basket at the base. Place the cut mushroom frag on top of the substrate, flesh-side down. Position the basket in a low to moderate flow area, the coral does not need strong current during attachment, and directing significant flow into a contracting frag will slow the process.

Check after 24 hours. Most mushroom frags will begin making contact with the substrate surface within this window. Full attachment where the frag can be gently handled without releasing typically takes 48 to 72 hours depending on the species and the individual coral's response to fragging. Once attached, the frag plug and coral can be removed from the basket and moved to its grow-out position in the display or frag tank.

The basket can then be rinsed, cleaned of any tissue remnants, and reused for the next propagation cycle.

Mushroom Propagation and Nutrition - the Connection

Newly fragged soft corals recover faster and attach more reliably when the surrounding water contains the micronutrients and planktonic particles they would encounter in a natural reef environment. Live phytoplankton and zooplankton provide the suspended organic material that soft corals passively absorb through their tissue during the recovery phase, a consideration worth making if you are propagating mushrooms regularly and want to maximise attachment rates.

Dosing live phytoplankton into the system during the attachment window provides a nutritional environment that supports recovery and encourages the polyp to extend rather than remain contracted. Reefphyto's 5-Species Phytoplankton is a practical addition to any reef where soft coral propagation is an active part of the system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use the basket for zoanthids and palythoa? Zoanthids and palythoa form colonial mats and propagate differently from disc corals, individual polyps can be detached and placed on plugs directly in most cases. The basket is less necessary for these species, but can be used to contain small colonies during acclimation.

Does the basket need to be weighted or fixed in place? The PETG material is denser than water, so the basket will sit on any flat surface without floating. In moderate flow environments it will remain stable without additional anchoring. In very high flow areas, placing the basket in a sheltered position behind a rock is advisable.

How do I clean it between uses? Remove any coral tissue remnants with a soft brush and rinse in freshwater. For heavier encrustation between cycles, a brief soak in a vinegar solution followed by a freshwater rinse is effective without damaging the PETG.

Can it hold more than one frag at a time? The basket is designed for single-frag use during the attachment phase. Placing multiple frags together risks them attaching to each other rather than to the substrate, which complicates separation later.

3D Reef Tools, Designed and Printed in Wales

The Hexagonal Mushroom Basket is part of the Reefphyto 3D reef tools range, designed and printed in-house at our Welsh facility. Every piece is built around a practical problem that reef keepers genuinely face, not aesthetic novelty. If you have questions about mushroom propagation, soft coral husbandry, or how to combine the basket with other tools in your propagation system, contact us directly. Darren is available personally and answers questions from reef keepers at every level of experience.