Biotope Invertebrates

[DoublEntendre]

I am very slowly working on a Peruvian biotope. I have found tons of information on fish and plants that I could use and I have come up with a list of ones that I plan to get, but I have not been able to find information on invertebrates. Are there not many Amazonian invertebrates in the aquarium trade? If there are some, what are they?

 

[DoublEntendre]

I found that Pomacea maculata and Pomacea haustrum come from Peru, but there are some problems with these species. First of all, they are hard to find. Second, they get really big (bigger than any of the fish I plan to keep). And third, from what I understand, snails can be bad for planted tanks.

Daphnia pulex (water flea) has a cosmopolitan distribution, so maybe you can find it in Peru and maybe you can't. I think that could be an interesting addition to a tank, though. And it could serve as a food source for fish as well.

 

[jetajockey]

Daphnia would be okay as a live food source but there isn't enough in the water column for them to survive long term. You could breed them in a separate container though without much issue.

 

[DoublEntendre]

Daphnia

What exactly do they need to survive long term? I've heard they can be difficult.

 

[jetajockey]

I've had good luck using green water algae and yeast. There is a writeup in the articles section that goes over it.

 

[DoublEntendre]

Alright, I'll look into that.

I also read that there is an Amazon glass shrimp, but I can't seem to find any information about it. Only that it exists. That says to me that it would probably be hard to get them.