Cold-water corals form true hotspots of biodiversity in the cold and dark deep sea, but need to live off of only small amounts of food that reach the deep sea. Using chemical tracers, this study investigated whether cold-water corals are picky eaters. We found that under low food conditions, they do not differentiate between food sources but they do differentiate at high food concentrations. This adaptation suggests that they are well adapted to exploit short food pulses efficiently.