RE Lion fish in pairs near Gitmo... I have not seen anything published on this, but definitely noticed that most of them were in pairs in a niche on the reef wall at San Salvador, Bahamas. Wonder why... are they mated pairs?
As for their being in Cuba for years... not too many years. They just reached that area recently. Now spreading south and presumably will soon reach the S. and E. Caribbean.
They have already reached the southern Caribbean, we have them here on the Caribbean coast of Panama.