Costa Teguise Aquarium - Lanzarote

Had the pleasure of visiting this surprisingly large aquarium during a recent holiday to Lanzarote.

I am just going to jot down some thoughts in a “mini review” under the pictures as potentially not worth a full forum post.

The aquarium is in the resort town of Costa Teguise set back in the town away from the seafront.

The entrance is understated and unassuming sharing a frontage with a bar. I was expecting very little from initial impressions but was pleasantly surprised by the aquariums offering.

Entering through the giftshop you still have no sense of what’s to come as the aquarium is entirely below ground. After paying you descend into the basement and follow a one way system through the aquarium.

First tanks are for native/local fish and some touch pools which were empty at the time of our visit.

A large tank with some equally large trigger fish ends this section before a faux ship wreck allows viewing in the main ocean tank through some gimmicky portholes etc.

Next are two small crescent shaped tanks for “rescued” loggerhead turtles. There were two (one in each tank) at time of visit. One with notably reduced mobility and I suspect not suitable for release seemed to struggle to surface with only two functional fins.

Next a convex hemisphere viewing window showed a pair of moray eels in a gloomy/rocky enclosure (think Disney’s Flotsam and Jetsam).

More trigger fish next and some small tanks for wrasse and shrimp species etc.

Then a large viewing window to the main ocean tank featuring highlight species of nurse shark and southern stingrays as well as assorted silver ocean fish and another loggerhead turtle. This tank is surprisingly large and has two viewing windows both of a similar size with tiered seating, perhaps 20ft by 12ft…

There are then some marine tanks holding the usual array of clownfish and tangs etc but all fish were in exceptional condition. Exhibitory of tanks throughout was functional but clean and offered good viewing.

There is then a rough cube of a tank traversed by a tunnel for a pair of blacktip reef sharks performing the typical circling routes you would expect. I think potentially this tank may take the award for “smallest tank that has successfully accommodated a tunnel”.

Finally the second viewing window to the ocean tank and a second set of touch pool exhibits and a display re pollution and ocean plastics before taking the stairs back to street level.

The aquarium is deceptively large and must use the basement space of several surrounding businesses.

Signage throughout was basic (species name) but multilingual

I tend to not look at Zootierliste before visiting aquariums as largely I am a mammal person and visit aquariums for pure entertainment and not species hunting… however had I done so I would have taken a proper species list as the record seems sadly sparsely populated.

ZT would suggest the site holds sand tiger sharks I can confirm this is not the case and struggle to imagine squeezing them in to the “ocean tank” or “shark tank” however having seen them at Berlin Aquarium anything is possible…

I found time to visit Rancho Texas also whilst in Lanzarote and will post a review/walk through and photos in due course.

S