It’s pretty common knowledge that anemones of any kind can easily catch small fish, or specimens that are weakened from stress or injury, but you don’t really expect that from corals. Sure we’ve all seen the evidence of open brains and disc corals eating a dead fish or silverside here and there but this Trachyphyllia is on another mission.
After discovering a few small fish gone missing from his reef tank, Dmitry Tumanov caught his open brain Trachy with what was once a healthy, living large azure damselfish. A fleshy LPS coral has to be in the prime of health with a strong feeding response for it to be strong enough to take down a small healthy reef fish, but it does happen, and we thank Dmitry for sharing this proof that there’s a small risk mixing large polyped stony corals and small reef fish.
Search More: azure damselfish • brain coral • coral food • fish eater • LPS • trachyphyllia