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Aquarium trade is one of the most important pathways of biological invasion. Much attention has been given to target introduced species, but little is discussed on the associated bycatch ones. The aim of this paper is to analyze the risk of invasion by non-commercial invertebrates using aquarium stores as a model. Monthly visits to eight stores in Aracaju (Sergipe State) were performed from April to September 2011. Inspections were carried out and questionnaires were applied to owners and employees of the establishments. Two non-native species were identified, Melanoides tuberculatus (Gastropoda: Thiaridae) and Lernaea cyprinacea (Crustacea, Copepoda). Sixty-two specimens of M. tuberculatus were found among the aquatic plants in one of the stores, while L. cyprinacea was collected in four establishments parasitizing Carassius auratus, Hypostomus sp., Poecilia latipinna, Poecilia sphenops, Poecilia reticulata and Xiphophorus hellerii. The interviews that have been done with owners and employees revealed that none of the stores has submitted fishes and plants to quarantine, and the disposal of wastewater is directly into the sewer system. It is necessary to adopt preventive measures such as a quarantine period for fishes and the creation of a warning about the dangers of biological invasions or aquarium dumping for aquarium hobbyists to mitigate the risk of invasion.

Given the importance and applicability of these biometric relations, the present work aimed to verify the existence of correlations between the length of saggitae otoliths and the body size of seven south‐western Atlantic marine fish species and to generate equations to estimate the body size of these species through otolith measurements. Fifty otoliths of Centropomus parallelus, Centropomus undecimalis, Lutjanus analis, Lutjanus jocu, Lutjanus synagris, Chaetodipterus faber and Mugil curema were collected for analysis. Significant relations between otolith length and total length and otolith width and total length were found for all the species. The highest coefficient of determination was observed for Centropomus undecimalis and Lutjanus synagris, for both relations, and the lowest was observed for Mugil curema. The results show that estimates of body size of the species through biometric analyses of otoliths are reliable. Based on this, the equations generated to obtain the total length of the fish using biometric otolith data can be used in dietary studies of top predators and in paleontological recostructions of modern fish.