Description
Tylomelania is a genus of large snail that is found in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The “yellow rabbit snail” is a color form exclusively found in Lake Matano. These snails have long conical shells and can reach anywhere from 3 to 5 inches in length when fully grown. The shells are dark brown in color while the flesh of the snail is its namesake bright yellow. The shell has noticeable ridges as it spirals toward its apex. This snail is rather active and can be seen dragging itself along the aquarium throughout both the day and night. The name “rabbit snail” comes from the elongated antennae that hang down and give the appearance of rabbit-like ears.
To care for the rabbit snail it is important that your aquarium is well established and the ammonia and nitrate levels be kept at undetectable levels. The lake they are found in has alkaline waters, and as such they would prefer an aquarium with a higher ph. Although that is preferred, it is not paramount, and the yellow rabbit snail can survive in standard tank parameters. A temperature around 74-78 is ideal, but they can do well in lower or higher temperatures for limited periods of time. Lower water temperatures will cause the snail to become less active, and its metabolism will slow down. As with other snails as well as shrimp, minerals should be added to the water in order for the snail to maintain its shell and be healthy. For their diet they are excellent scavengers and will eat soft algae growing on surfaces in the tank. They will also eat almost any flake, frozen, or pellet food that sinks to the bottom of the tank. Since the yellow rabbit snail will grow to a larger size, a minimum tank capacity of 20 gallons is recommended. Although these snails are great in a planted tank with tough plants, you may want to keep them out of tanks with delicate plants, as they sometimes bulldoze plants when dragging their shells around, and are also known to damage some plants with delicate leaves when they scrape the algae off.
The yellow rabbit snail is peaceful on its own and should be kept with fish that are also on the peaceful side. They can be kept in a community tank so long as there are no large aggressive fish that could potentially harm the snail. It is also important to avoid putting them with loaches since these fish are known for eating snails of all different sizes. These snails are a colorful and large invertebrate to have trundling around your tank, and unlike some smaller pest snails, you will never lose sight of them and they do not reproduce at an alarming rate, so you can always control the population. These snails do not ship individually bagged.
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