Colorful Coral Head Colorful Coral Head . All life on the tropical coral reefs depends on corals. Either directly or indirectly, corals make possible all the life in our shallow tropical seas.
Corals remove minerals from ocean water to build enormous colonial skeletons.
Even though all these other animals depend on corals, the corals' life is not peaceful. The polyps require a place to live on the surface of the coral skeleton, and neighboring colonies will fight with each other for space on the reef. In this picture we see a colony of Star Corals that has built a towering skeleton that rises 12 feet above the sand. The top of this tower has a healthy colony of Star Coral polyps. Each yellow-brown dot at the top of this tower is a single Star Coral polyp.