Here’s a spectacular video of a Stylophora pistillata eating live Artemia nauplii. The video demonstrates how the coral expands its polyps, captures a living Artemia, and slowly pulls the tiny invertebrate into its mouth. The detail of the macro video actually caught me off guard when I first started watching this clip.
This feeding behavior may come as a surprise to some reef keepers since the polyps on these corals are typically very small and SPS get most of their nutrition via photosynthesis. In the wild, corals encounter planktonic food on a regular basis. While these corals do not require supplemental feedings to thrive in the home aquarium, it’s generally good practice to at least augment the nutrients they receive photosynthetically.
