The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, Florida

The Florida Aquarium is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public aquarium at 701 Channelside Drive in the Channel District of downtown Tampa, open since March 31, 1995.

Its About Us page says the organization's mission programs include conservation, research, education and outreach, and lists accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and American Humane certification. The aquarium's public phone number is (813) 273-4000. Its research work is split between the Channelside building and a conservation campus in Apollo Beach in southern Hillsborough County, which the conservation campus page describes as a 20-acre campus within the Florida Conservation and Technology Center.

The state also lists the Channelside building as a place to see sea turtles. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission names The Florida Aquarium at 701 Channelside Dr among the state-permitted facilities that house or rehabilitate sea turtles, reached through FWC's Marine Turtle Permit Holder organizations.

The Florida Aquarium posted admission hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the week of October 18, 2026, with Monday listed until 6 p.m., and it sells date-based tickets online.

The Tampa aquarium's tickets page explains that tickets are priced based on the day of the visit under what the aquarium calls Plan-Ahead Pricing, that advance online reservations are recommended, and that tickets are valid only for the date selected; rescheduling is by phone at (813) 273-4000. Active or retired military visitors who show a valid ID at the ticket window receive 10 percent off the entire order, and the aquarium takes part in the AZA Reciprocity Admission Program. Because prices change by date, no single adult price appears on the page.

Parking near Channelside fills quickly, the parking page warns, so the aquarium points ticket buyers to pre-paid parking in their confirmation email. Valet parking at the main entrance is run by The Car Park at $20 for up to 3 hours and $40 for over 3 hours, with $5 off for members, but valet is not offered on days when a cruise is in port at Terminal 2.

Visitors can also skip the car. The aquarium's getting here page lists the TECO Line Streetcar into the Channel District, the Pirate Water Taxi with stops near the aquarium, City of Tampa scooter and eBike vendors, bike rentals and multiple HART bus routes. Drivers coming from the south are directed via the Selmon Expressway, exit 9 toward the Port of Tampa, then E Adamo Drive and Channelside Drive to the traffic circle.

The Florida Aquarium began in 1977 as the Clearwater Marine Science Center on Clearwater Beach and opened in Tampa in 1995.

According to its history, the center was a private nonprofit educational organization; its board approved an expansion plan in 1985, and The Florida Aquarium, Inc. was incorporated on December 12, 1986 as a separate nonprofit organization. After years of negotiation, planning and design, the aquarium opened in Tampa on March 31, 1995.

The Tampa organization reports that it served one million residents and visitors in its first year and produced an economic impact of $60 million for the community. Accreditation by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association followed in March 1997, the Dive with the Sharks program began in 2003, and the aquarium educated its one-millionth child in December 2010. It celebrated 30 years downtown on March 31, 2025.

The aquarium is the anchor attraction of the Channel District, a City of Tampa community redevelopment area that the City describes as moving from a warehouse district to a residential and entertainment district.

A City of Tampa Channel District planning chapter records that in 2002 the City and the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission prepared a Finding of Necessity report and City Council designated the district as a CRA, which established tax increment financing for capital improvements. The same chapter plans a pedestrian promenade along the south and east sides of Channelside Drive that links the Channelside mixed-use development and the Florida Aquarium to City and Port Authority land to the north. The City's Channel District CRA page says the district is fulfilling its transformation from a warehouse district to a vibrant urban residential and arts and entertainment magnet.

The CRA has also put money into the aquarium itself. The Tampa CRA 2024 annual report says the aquarium brought over 1 million visitors to the Channel District in 2024 and that the Tampa CRA approved $15 million toward its expansion. The report lists the project cost as $45 million, with the aquarium providing $30 million in private investment, which the City describes as a 2 to 1 return on investment for the CRA.

Coral breeding is the aquarium's best known research program, run from a 9,000 square foot Coral Conservation and Research Center in Apollo Beach.

The Coral Conservation Program page says the Apollo Beach center provides a haven for more than 70,000 corals from 17 species, and that by replicating reef conditions such as water temperature, length of day, light levels and moon phase the aquarium has spawned 14 different coral species in its biosecure facility. The page frames the work around Florida's Coral Reef, which stretches about 360 miles along the southeastern Florida coast.

Federal reef managers credit the lab. The NOAA Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary media page states that The Florida Aquarium made history simulating ocean conditions in a laboratory to induce natural spawning of endangered pillar coral, and that during the August 2019 spawning event divers collected larvae at Western Dry Rocks, off Key West, and transported them to the aquarium for settlement and grow-out. The same page shows rescued corals held in quarantine tanks at the aquarium's Apollo Beach center during the stony coral tissue loss disease response.

The aquarium treats sick and injured sea turtles at a 19,000 square foot Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center that opened in Apollo Beach in January 2019.

The center grew out of a September 2012 partnership among the aquarium, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Tampa Electric, which the aquarium's history says produced the Florida Conservation and Technology Center. FWC describes that center as a partnership between Tampa Electric Company, The Florida Aquarium, the University of Florida and FWC that, among other work, uses aquaculture to restore marine fish and invertebrates such as corals and rehabilitates sea turtles.

The aquarium's conservation campus page says the rehabilitation center includes a veterinary hospital where visitors can watch staff at work, 12 recovery pools and a deep dive pool for behavioral assessment and pre-release conditioning. In January 2025 the center added eight Mobile Aquatic Sea turtle Holding units to expand its capacity, the aquarium reports. The campus is open to the public from November 1 through April 15 each year, according to the same page, and FWC lists the same seasonal window for public viewing at the Florida Conservation and Technology Center.

Since 2022 the aquarium has been carrying out a $45 million expansion that has so far added the Mosaic Exhibit Hall and The Tide Pool.

The aquarium's historical highlights say it announced the $45 million expansion plan in August 2022, with a grand outdoor sea lion habitat as its most notable piece, and opened the Mosaic Exhibit Hall with the MORPH'D gallery in May 2023. In December 2023 it welcomed its one millionth guest in a single year for the first time in its 28-year history, and in August 2025 it opened The Tide Pool, a cold-water touch habitat with more than 200 marine invertebrates.

The City's 2024 CRA annual report lists the planned work as Mosaic Exhibit Hall renovations with rotating exhibits, a second-floor gallery, a new outdoor exhibit, an expanded public-facing animal habitat and ADA accessible upgrades, in three phases expected to be completed by 2026. That completion date was the City's expectation in its 2024 report; the aquarium's own pages, checked October 18, 2026, did not list the outdoor sea lion habitat as open.

Energy upgrades involved public partners as well. The aquarium records that in June 2021 the Bayview Rooftop Terrace Powered By TECO opened after the installation of more than 1,100 solar panels, through a partnership with Tampa Electric and Hillsborough County.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the aquarium's About Us, coral program, conservation campus, tickets, parking and getting here pages, the Tampa CRA 2024 annual report and Channel District pages, two FWC pages and the NOAA Florida Keys sanctuary media page.