If it's any consolation, this is how coral eats, kind of. Coral is composed of two elements: the polyp, which is related to jellyfish and resembles a sea anemone, and the symbiotic algae that live in the polyps' body and arms, called the zooxanthellae.

The zooxanthellae, being photosynthetic, absorb sunlight and convert it into sugar and give it to the polyp. The polyp in turn filter feeds food from the water using its tiny tentacles and gives the nutrients to the algae.

In this GIF, the individual polyps stick their bodies out at night to begin snatching food particles that float by. A single colony of coral consists of many small polyps anchored in a chalk base/skeleton that holds them next to each other, covered in a layer of soft tissue. The combined skeletons made of chalk is all that is left when a colony dies, which is the coral that most people find washed up on the sea shore.

I also forgot to mention that it's territorial, and if two colonies grow too close, they will begin secreting digestive juices and ejecting their stomachs to war with the enemy colony, attempting to digest its enemy alive!