Good polyp resources?

I was out today, doing one of my new favorite things...cruising the various LFS and buying the little $5 "crumbs" or "frags" of coral hanging out in the bottom of the reef/fish tanks. I figure that if I manage to grow the cheap pieces, then I'll feel more confident on trying my hand at some fancier species.

I've come up with a nice little colony of zoos, a 1.5"x2" cluster of green star polyps and some various shrooms (The stars aren't actually attached to a rock, just a little bundle of tubes). I'm trying to find some info on getting the polyps to thrive..any suggestions? Right now, all of the polyps are rather high in the tank, which they seem to like. They already look a bit better than they did on the sand in the LFS.

I read the GARF article on polyp propagation, but as I'm not using the same lighting, and didn't start the tank just to grow polyps, there wasn't much I could walk away with.

I also got a piece of live rock with some odd growth on it. My digital camera stinks, otherwise I would take a picture. (For some reason I seem to have a hard time finding money to buy a new one...hrmm...wonder why? [smiley=afro.gif]) The growth looks like individual, raised patches of grey with hints of pink. Several of the patches have a single round growth, about 1/4" tall and around the width of a #2 pencil eraser. The texture of the growth reminds me of a wart, and there doesn't appear to be any visable opening. I'm thinking either some kind of sponge, or just simply a wait and see type of thing. Don't really know why I bought the piece, other than the mysterious growth, there isn't much else on the rock. All part of the fun I guess.