image used for fish id on website

Fish ID $125

Fish ID certification

“What was that fish?” is a common question heard after a dive. If you want to be the scuba diver with the answers, instead of the one asking the questions, then take the Fish Identification Specialty course from SSI. You’ll enjoy your dives even more after your Fish ID course, when you recognize the creatures that you see and can identify the main fish families and their characteristics.

Anyone, even a non-diver, can enroll in the SSI Fish Identification course.

Once you learn to recognize what types of fish you see, you’ll find it easier to reference the exact species after a scuba dive. For example, a butterfly fish in the Caribbean has a similar shape to a butterfly fish in Southeast Asia. Howver,  colors and markings may be wildly different. If you know what fish family it belongs to, you can more easily look up the local name. Or, at least be able to intelligently ask the local scuba instructor what you saw.
During two scuba dives, you’ll learn:

  • How to identify characteristics of local fish families and species.
  • Fish survey techniques and strategies.  Our favorite is the internationally recognized reef.org, which can provide survey materials for YOUR area (global)

Hawaii Fish ID

We recommend this book if you are interested in Hawaii Fish ID (although any HI specific book will do).  Hoover has a number of guides, this one is just my favorite.

Hawai’i’s Fishes / A guide for snorkelers and divers

Fish ID dive trips

If you a want to travel around the world and work on your “life list” of identified fish species, you can join our travel group.  The group has an unsurprising number of “fish nerds” including the owner Matt Zimmerman.  He likes to travel with his reef.org survey sheets and “bag” new species for his life list.  FYI, reef.org will maintain that life list for you!

Here is a list of international guided dive trips. Matt goes on all of them.

Fish Indentification Course discount

Since this blog post was first published back in 2016 the prices have gone up $25 for this course.  But if you email matt@islanddivershawaii.com and ask for the $125 price “you saw on the blog” he will assign you the digital learning.  You can earn the specialty remotely, since there are no required dives.