I just got back from a trip with my son on the Turks & Caicos Aggressor II. The ship's captain (Piers) had said that 3 Lion Fish had been seen at various sites. His theory was that some eggs had been inadvertently released from a research station in Florida, and had made their way down through the Carribean. On the last day of diving, I was fortunate enough to find one at a site (The Crack on the North Point of Providenciales) where none had been seen before. He/she was in 50' of water just to the right of a large pillar coral in a sandy patch.

The little guy was hiding in a crevice. And, of course, I had a 10.5 mm fisheye lens with me. Since he was backed into the crevice, I had to swing my strobe around in such a way to back-light him. So, nothing fancy with this shot. Just an "evidence" photo!

Nice 'different' shot. These guys are all over the Bahamas and US East Coast now, and apparently causing significant damage to the reef ecosystem. I have heard a number of theories as to how they got there, including release from aquariums in the US and/or Bahamas etc.
This pic was taken in the Northern Bahamas, Turks is South, so clearly they are spread out now.
http://www.waterworldimages.com/gallery/27...#144011266-L-LB

They're getting fairly common on wrecks off the NC coast where I live - the ones I've seen appear to be Volitan's lionfish, and there are some pretty large specimens out there. There's a lot of concern about it.

Beyond the environmental impact, I'm also concerned about divers getting hurt through ignorance - some folks don't know what a lionfish is, and don't seem to realize that they're venomous. I've seen people getting way too close. One guy would have speared one if I hadn't stopped him (would've served him right, I know).

I saw a Pterois volitan in the key largo area last year, about 10 miles out, on the reef. I was so surprised to see him. When I got back I looked it up on the internet and read that many have been introduced (whether purposefully or not) to that area.

I'm curious as to whether smaller reef fish can sense this animal as a predator even if they are not native to the area. These fish wouldn't have any contact with this species in any of their ancestors. Rather interesting. I'm sure something will stand up and be the predator of the lion fish in this area.

Lionfish?
In the last 2.5 years I have seen the common lionfish population on San Salvador Island, Bahamas go from 1 to hundreds. Yes...I said hundreds.
My co-workers and I have killed almost 100. I killed 7 on one dive. They seem to mate & spawn often and with tens of thousands of eggs. Some have been disected and the others we let fall over the wall. No other fish want to go near the dying or dead lionfish after we have caught them with a Hawaiian sling. We haven't found a lionfish predator yet. We have found the lionfish in as shallow as 4 feet and as deep as 135 feet. From baby ( almost totally translucent to 12 inches ).
NOAA says they may come from private and commercial aquariums as well as ship ballasts from the Panama canal. We will never catch up to the lionfish population explosion. Unfortunately this is an evasive species that is here to stay. Some divers are obviously happy to finally see a lionfish but they won't be so happy when the other fish have disappeared.
If anyone videos the lionfish mating please contact Reef.org More info may be obtaines from the Gerace Research station on San Salvador Island.