Learn About Our Lionfish!

Florida Fish and Wildlife is always looking to help educate the public on our local species of marine life. With their help, Aquarium Encounters has been able to add to our existing Lionfish exhibit. Our main goal was to bring awareness to their invasive nature and how FWC is trying to manage their ever growing population.

Our Lionfish tank, sponsored by Castaways, is a great representation of a rocky structure where you could potentially spot some Lionfish. Aside from coral patches, and rock piles, Lionfish are commonly found on abandoned lobster traps and other man-made structures that are now underwater. With FWC’s assistance we added a TV above our tank, showcasing some dense populations of Lionfish in Florida’s water. In the video we created, we also show the best way to harvest Lionfish! FWC does have an open season, and there is no size or bag limit for Lionfish. We encourage you to get out there and help our ecosystem by catching what you can, we have to “Eat them to beat them”. Lionfish is tasty and can be served cooked or in sushi! The best way to go about collecting Lionfish, is with a pole spear and Zoo Keeper, and now we have one of each displayed over our tank. If you watch the video we have created you will watch a diver use the pole spear to collect lionfish and safely contain them in their Zoo Keeper. The thick plastic tube keeps the diver safe from all the Lionfish’s spines!

We hope you stop by the aquarium to check out our new exhibit additions and learn some interesting facts about the invasive LionFish!