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In general various corals have employed various
feeding strategies: some corals feed primarily on zooplankton, others
are predators that feed on small fishes, others feed on organic debris,
and finally we have a large group of reef-building corals that meet
their nutritional demands by having a symbiotic relationship with
zooxanthellae. The corals are generally nocturnal feeders; in the daytime they remain in their calcium carbonate cups, whereas they feed in the night. When they feed they extend their tentacles and capture their food with the aid of their nematocysts. Some corals secrete a fine mucus on their tentacles in which they collect small particulate organic matter. The coral polyps in a colony are interconnected through small pores in the skeleton. Each polyp has a pathway to the adjacent polyp through which interchange of nutrients and other substances can occur.
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