The Alcyonacea, or the soft corals are an order of corals which do not produce calcium carbonate skeletons and so are neither reef-building corals nor do they lay new foundations for future corals. Instead they contain minute, spiney skeletal elements called sclerites. Aside from their scientific utility in species identification, sclerites give these corals some degree of support and give their flesh a spiky, grainy texture that deters predators.
Unlike stony corals, most soft corals thrive in nutrient-rich waters with less light intensity. Almost all utilize zooxanthella as a major energy source. However, most will readily eat any free floating food, such as brine shrimp, out of the water column.

Many soft corals are easily collected in the wild for the reef aquarium hobby, as small cuttings are less prone to infection or damage during shipping than stony corals. Nevertheless, home-grown specimens are both more ecologically responsible and more practical. Soft corals grow quickly in captivity and are easily divided into new individuals, and so those grown via aquaculture are often hardier and less expensive than imported corals from the wild.

most of its colors are very soft colors and it is very squishy. It feeds at night by retracking long tube-like worms from its body. Some soft coral can eat the hard coral because the hard coral does not have long tube-like worms to defind its self. The soft coral will eat the flesh right off of the hard coral.

Related orders in the subclass Alcyonaria include Sea pens, Sea fans, Sea whips and xenias.


Hard Corals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone–like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals. The group includes the important reef builders that are found in tropical oceans, which secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

A coral "head", commonly perceived to be a single organism, is actually formed of thousands of individual but genetically identical polyps, each polyp only a few millimeters in diameter. Over thousands of generations, the polyps lay down a skeleton that is characteristic of their species. A head of coral grows by asexual reproduction of the individual polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, with corals of the same species releasing gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon.

Although corals can catch plankton using stinging cells on their tentacles, these animals obtain most of their nutrients from symbiotic unicellular algae called zooxanthellae. Consequently, most corals depend on sunlight and grow in clear and shallow water, typically at depths shallower than 60 m (200 ft). These corals can be major contributors to the physical structure of the coral reefs that develop in tropical and subtropical waters, such as the enormous Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Other corals do not have associated algae and can live in much deeper water, such as in the Atlantic, with the cold-water genus Lophelia surviving as deep as 3000 m.[3] An example of these are the Darwin Mounds located north-west of Cape Wrath, Scotland. Corals have also been found off the coast of Washington State and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

Marine Coral

LPS Coral 2 Products Ricordea Florida's Soft Coral 1 Products SPS Coral Sort by: Product Price Default See details Euphyllia glabrescens Torch Coral The Euphyllia Torch Coral is a large polyp stony (LPS) coral, often referred to as Trumpet Coral or Pom-Pom Coral. It has long and flowing polyps with single rounded tips which are visible throughout the day and night, hiding its branching skeletal base most of the time. It may be brown or green ... Our price: £24.99 Quantity 1 Buy Now Add to wish list