Corals are classified as animals in the phylum cnidaria. They are related to jellyfish and sea anemone.
Corals are in the class Anthozoa.
Anthozoa
anthozoa
Scyphozoa
Hydrozoans, sea anemones, & corals
Coral belongs to the group of animals known as cnidarians, which also includes jellyfish and sea anemones. They are characterized by their stinging tentacles and polyp-shaped bodies that form into colonies to create coral reefs.
Corals are in the animal class of Anthozoa's, and live in compact colonies in the ocean reefs. People often confuse corals with plants because of their appearance.
http://www.wonder-okinawa.jp/006/english/hyakka/doubutu/sangorui/index.html Use that link to figure out which type of coral you need! If you just want the general name, though, use Cnidarians
soft corals live deeper water than hard corals because soft corals do not create a hard outer skeleton as the hard corals do.
A zoantharian is any member of the Zoantharia (or Anthozoa) taxonomic class, including corals, sea pens, and sea anemones.
First off, all three types of organims are in the kingdom Animalia, and are not plants, they are animals. Jellyfish and Coral are both in the phylum cnidaria; jellyfish are further divided into class Medusozoa, which has a number of its own subgroups, whereas corals are in the class Anthozoa, which again is subdivided into a number of its own groups, but the what are usually considered corals are mostly in the groups Scleractinia(stony corals) and Octocorallia(soft corals, gorgonians, etc). The sponges on the otherhand are in a completely different phylum, Porifera, which is further divided into many different groups, and is not closely related to the Cnidarians.
Corals are plants.
Corals are not decomposers. They are consumers.
Hermatypic corals contain zooxanthellae (a symbiotic algae), whereas ahermatypic corals do not. It is like saying that hermatypic corals are photosynthetic, where ahermatypic corals are non photosynthetic.