Triangle Rabbit Snail

Tylomelania sinabartfeldi

FreshwaterSnail

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–86°F (24–30°C)
pH: 7.0–8.5
Adult size: 2 in (5 cm)
Minimum tank: 5 gal (20 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: Hard
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Sulawesi
Family: Pachychilidae

Overview

The triangle rabbit snail is a Sulawesi snail with a dark, ridged shell that grazes steadily over wood, rock, and sand for algae, biofilm, and detritus. It is peaceful and indifferent to tankmates, mixing well with community fish and shrimp, and it is content on its own. Like all rabbit snails it needs warm, hard, alkaline water and a soft sand bed to forage through, and it must be kept away from copper, which is toxic to snails. It breeds slowly, one live baby at a time, so it will never overrun a tank. A tank of 20 liters or more gives it space to graze.

In the wild

Rabbit snails live only in the ancient lakes and feeder streams of Sulawesi, where warm, hard, alkaline water stays much the same all year. The triangle rabbit snail settles best in a tank that mirrors that, held from about 24 to 30 c with a pH from 7 to 8.5. A deep bed of soft sand is important, since the snail plows through the top layer searching for food and buries part of its long shell. Steady minerals, clean water, and calm flow keep it healthy and its shell strong.

Good to know

Tylomelania sinabartfeldi is one of the Sulawesi rabbit snails in the family Pachychilidae, uncommon in shops. It grows to around 5 cm, with the long, whorled, ribbed shell and horny trapdoor typical of the genus. It is a livebearer, giving birth to a single fully formed juvenile at a time rather than laying eggs. Because that output is so low and the babies mature slowly, building up a colony on purpose is slow work and rated hard.

Did you know

Rabbit snails are choosy about mates and slow to reproduce, so a female may raise only a handful of young in a year. That patience is the trade-off for a snail that will never plague a tank the way faster breeders do.