have you considered that everything was good in the earth before sin.
Have you noticed that, according to that same story, Adam had already lived 900 years and died by the time The Big Wet got there? What does your question have to do with the Flood anyway?
Back to the OP itself, corals would have it even worse than many fishes. The typical reef-building coral
* must have sunlight, and so shallow, clean water
* is picky about temperature - only a narrow window will do
* grows very slowly - the Capitan Reef out here in Texas is about 500 meters thick. With a real optimistic growth rate of 1 centimeter per year, that's 5000 years to grow. And that would require sea level to keep perfectly in sync with growth. It's very, very dry and about a mile above sea level out at the base of El Capitan today.
Oh, and hello and welcome, new folks!
[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 04-27-2003]