Inspired by Gosse's new book, The Aquarium, published in 1854 Lloyd, who worked for a bookseller, began keeping marine animals in glass tanks.
On 14 July 1855 he opened a shop advertised in Notes & Queries as “selling everything relating to aquaria” at 164 St John Street Road, Clerkenwell, London.
Success in Germany led to his appointment as Superintendent of the Crystal Palace Aquarium two years before it opened in 1871.
Anton Dohrn who had made Lloyd's acquaintance in 1866 at the Hamburg aquarium invited him to install the aquaria at Stazione Zoologica at Naples in the spring of 1873.
Anton Dohrn's professional biological station flourished and the Swedish Professor Loven of Sweden, who planned a research establishment sent a representative to London to consult with Lloyd.