The aquarium is open to the elements, which means the thousands of reef animals that are housed here receive natural day and moonlight and experience rain just like a natural reef would.

Coral World's marine operations staff has reconstructed this natural living coral reef with an amazing array of local corals, sponges, fish, sea anemones, lobsters, conchs, stingrays and other marine creatures. Recreating a coral reef on land is a difficult task because corals are among the most sensitive organisms on our planet. Because the Caribbean Reef Encounter receives unfiltered sea water directly from the ocean around the Undersea Observatory Tower, we are able to satisfy the requirements of corals for relatively constant temperatures and salinity and to provide nutrition to the corals.

Watch the fish go into a feeding frenzy as a diver hand feeds in the tank during the twice daily narrated feedings.

If you would like to walk through a coral reef instead of just being a spectator, try Sea Trek, the ultimate helmet dive, and come face to face with many of the animals you see in the Caribbean Reef Encounter.

Because coral reefs are suffering around the world from pollution and climate change among other factors, Coral World is undertaking a Coral Restoration Project.

Corals are invertebrate animals. They belong to a large family of colorful and fascinating animals called Cnidaria that include jelly fish and sea anemones.

A coral polyp can 'fish' for food by extending its tentacles from its body, waving them in the water current, and stunning or killing small prey that floats or swims past with special stinging cells called cnidoblasts.

Coral reefs are noisy places because of all the sounds made by the inhabitants. Researchers have learned that fish listen to the sounds of a particular reef before deciding whether to settle down there or move on.