What coral eats: Coral polyps eat in two different ways, depending on
their species. The first way coral polyps are nourished by the algae. Algae
process the polyp's wastes to retain important nutrients and in turn
provide the polyp with oxygen. Meanwhile, the coral polyps provide the
algae with carbon dioxide and a safe, protected home. Algae living within
the tissue of hard corals can supply them with up to 98 percent of their
nutritional needs. The other way that corals eat is by catching tiny floating animals known
as zooplankton. At night the polyps come out of their skeletons to feed,
making the reef look like a "wall of mouths". The polyps stretch
out their long, stinging tentacles to capture the zooplankton that are
floating by. The captured plankton are then put into the polyps' mouths and
digested in their stomachs.
What eats coral: Coral is prey to many sea creature and fish like
parrotfish and the crown-of-thorns (a large starfish that eats coral polyps).
