i got some pretty small frags right now. but their branching out in different directions. should i clip them off and mount them on disk now? or w8 until they get to colony size?

The smaller the initial frags the exponentially slower they'll grow, I'd wait until they get bigger for sure. Plus the colony will be growing much faster by then.

k. i guess i'l w8 a little longer.

Is this because of over all surface area for the coral to "produce energy" ? What would a min. size be recommended for branching sps? Sorry to highjack...

In my experience this is the case, if you frag a few 1" pieces for example on a colony you will hardly notice where you cut them in a month (I fragged one sps and where I had cut it, it was healed in a matter of a week or less). For another example I fragged about a 4" tall, and 3" across green slimer and it has only regrown a half an inch or less in a few months.

Good to know. I take it then it stands true for the fragged piece. ie.The larger the frag, the larger the over all tissue area, the quicker it will grow.

Basically an acro can grow 1/4" a week in great conditions, if you have one branch that one is growing taller at 1/4" a week. However, if you let that frag grow new branches then each one of those will grow 1/4" a week, so the acro grows exponentially larger the more branches you let it have before you frag it