The Florida pompano (Trachinotus carolinus) is a common surf-zone fish species from the Western Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Brazil, supporting important commercial and recreational fisheries over much of this range. Pompano feed primarily on burrowing surf-zone invertebrates which are negatively affected by beach nourishment – an extensive practice along the East Coast U.S. Despite its ecological and economic importance, biological information on the age and growth of juvenile pompano and their susceptibility to impacts from beach nourishment is limited. This study represents an initial exploration of the otolith structure of juvenile pompano. Otolith microstructure is potentially a valuable tool for reconstructing the growth histories of juvenile pompano and their response to habitat perturbations such as beach nourishment. Thus, I attempted to validate daily increment formation in pompano otoliths and to test whether increment widths could serve as indicators of recent somatic growth rate. Captive juvenile pompano were marked with oxytetracycline (OTC) and fed different rations (5-20% body weight per day) during a two week growth experiment to induce growth variation. Subject pompano exhibited a near 6-fold variation in growth rate from 1.6%/day to 9.5%/day. Sagittal otoliths from growth-manipulated pompano were photographed, measured, and polished for increment analysis. It was impossible to validate daily increment formation or increment width due to 1) lack of an OTC mark and 2) irresolvable marginal increment structure. Preliminary measurements indicate increment width may be an indicator of somatic growth but further study is needed. Future research should explore alternative methods of otolith marking (calcein, alizarine complexone) and more precise methods for otolith polishing.