The Key West Aquarium is located at 1 Whitehead Street in Mallory Square in Key West, one of the most prominent tourist spots in the state of Florida. The Key West Aquarium is among the few unique aquariums on earth and the city administrators have used this aquarium to present an image of the city as ‘America’s Caribbean Island’. The city built the Key West Aquarium between 1932 and 1934. Millions of visitors come to Key West annually and the Key West Aquarium showcases the distinctive marine life and various marine species indigenous mainly to the Florida Keys. The Key West Aquarium contains an undersea world. When you visit the aquarium, a Window of Wonder would come alive and an expert would narrate and explain the various mysteries of the water that surround the Florida Keys.
Touch Tank
The Touch Tank provides direct hands on experience to the visitors on sea life. Visitors could get very close and have a personal experience of the major creatures of the lower keys ecosystems. You could come across many species of course conchs and whelks in Touch Tank, along with many members of the rough skin or Echinoderm family, such as state pencil sea urchins, sea starts, sea cucumbers, and serpent sea starts. Touch Tank also contains horseshoe crabs and giant hermit crabs in a variety of sizes that visitors enjoy very much. Visitors are even allowed to hold the animals in Touch Tank and take photographs with them.
The Key West Aquarium features a wide range of fish, such as grouper, barracuda, moray eels, tarpon, tropical fish, parrotfish, sharks, etc. and several more varieties of marine species. The Key West Aquarium is open on all the days throughout the year without a single holiday. The visiting hours are between 10 am and 6 pm. The Aquarium offers special guest tours with feedings of turtles and sharks at 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, and 4-30 pm. You could watch the guides feed nurse sharks, bonnethead sharks, and sandbar sharks, while explaining the mystery surrounding sharks. Overall, a visit to the Key West Aquarium is an unforgettable experience.