Rabbit snails are slow at everything — growing, breeding, and dying. A Tylomelania gives birth to one large baby at a time, lives for years, and asks for exactly one thing that most aquarists get wrong: hard, alkaline water.
Quick answer
- Hard, alkaline water. pH around 7.5–8.5, with real mineral content. Soft acidic water erodes the shell.
- Warm — roughly 76–84°F.
- Live-bearing, and famously slow: usually a single well-developed offspring at a time.
- Peaceful grazers. They eat biofilm, algae and detritus, not your fish.
- They cannot be sexed externally, so nobody can honestly sell you a sexed pair.
- Long-lived and low-waste. A good tank citizen rather than a project.
Where they come from, and why it matters
Tylomelania is endemic to the ancient lake systems of Sulawesi, Indonesia — Lake Poso and the Malili lakes. Those are old, stable, mineral-rich waters, and the genus has radiated into a large number of species there, many of them found in one lake and nowhere else.
The practical translation is simple: they evolved in hard water and their shells depend on it. Keep one in soft, acidic, unbuffered water and the shell begins to pit and erode at the spire. That damage does not reverse. It is not a disease and it is not the snail’s fault — it is a water chemistry problem, and it is the single most common thing that goes wrong.
The tank
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Water | Hard and alkaline. pH 7.5–8.5 with meaningful GH and KH. Buffer if your tap water is soft |
| Temperature | 76–84°F |
| Substrate | Sand or fine gravel — they plough through it grazing |
| Food | Biofilm and algae first, supplemented with blanched vegetables and sinking foods |
| Calcium | Cuttlebone or a mineral supplement. Shell growth needs a source |
| Tankmates | Peaceful community fish and shrimp. Avoid loaches, puffers and anything that eats snails |
| Lid | Useful — they climb, and they will find the rim |
Feeding, and the plant question
Rabbit snails graze constantly on biofilm and soft algae, which is most of what they need in an established tank. Supplement with blanched courgette, spinach or a quality sinking wafer, especially in a very clean tank where there is little natural growth.
They are generally safe with healthy plants. The caveat worth stating honestly: a hungry rabbit snail in an under-fed tank will sometimes take soft-leaved species, and any snail will eat plant material that is already dying. If you keep them well fed, the problem largely does not arise.
Breeding is slow, and that is the point
This is not a pest snail. Tylomelania are live-bearing and produce a single large, fully formed juvenile at a time, at long intervals. There is no population explosion waiting to happen — the risk with rabbit snails is the opposite, that a group grows so slowly you barely notice.
That slow reproduction is also why they are sold as counts rather than pairs. They cannot be sexed from the outside, so anyone offering a guaranteed male-and-female pair is guessing. Ours are offered as 1 Count, 2 Count and 3 Count for that reason.
Which ones we carry
We list the Golden Rabbit Snail and the Yellow Passo Rabbit Snail, both Tylomelania sp. Trade names in this genus describe colour and collection locality rather than confirmed species — the group is diverse and incompletely described, so we do not print a species epithet we cannot stand behind. The same standard applies across the catalogue and is explained in about Terrarium Station, with per-animal records in the SpeciesVault registry.
The full range is under rabbit snails for sale, and everything ships under our live arrival guarantee. If you want a land invertebrate with the same slow, low-maintenance character, millipede care is the closest equivalent on the terrestrial side.
Common questions
What water do rabbit snails need?
Hard and alkaline — pH roughly 7.5 to 8.5 with real mineral content, at 76–84°F. Soft acidic water causes shell erosion that does not reverse.
Do rabbit snails multiply like pest snails?
No. They are live-bearing and typically produce one well-developed juvenile at a time, at long intervals. Overpopulation is not a realistic concern.
Will rabbit snails eat my plants?
Usually not. They prefer biofilm, algae and decaying matter, though an underfed snail may sample soft-leaved plants. Keeping them properly fed prevents most of it.
Can you sex rabbit snails?
Not externally. There is no reliable visual method, which is why they should be sold as counts rather than as sexed pairs.
Why is my rabbit snail’s shell pitted?
Almost always water chemistry. Soft or acidic water dissolves the shell, typically starting at the spire. Raise the hardness and pH and add a calcium source; existing erosion will not heal but new growth will be sound.