SnailfreshwaterUndemandingHigh invasive risk

Malaysian trumpet snail

A burrowing, livebearing snail that turns over the substrate and prevents anaerobic pockets forming in deep sand. It also reproduces parthenogenetically, so one snail becomes a population and there is no getting rid of it.

Quick profile

Scientific name: Melanoides tuberculata
Adult size: 2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in)
Lifespan: 1–2 years
Temperature: 20–30 °C (68–86 °F)
pH: 7–8.5
Hardness: 6–25 °dGH
Minimum tank: 20 L (5 US gal)
Minimum length: 30 cm
Swimming zone: Bottom
Social: Tolerant of any grouping
Diet: Detritivore
Overall confidence: moderate confidence

What keeping this species involves

Effectively indestructible in hard water.

Soft sediment in warm fresh water; burrows by day.

Identity and names

Common name: Malaysian trumpet snail
Scientific name: Melanoides tuberculata
Family: Thiaridae
Order: Sorbeoconcha
Class: Gastropoda
Also sold as: MTS, trumpet snail

Adult size and growth

2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in)

Typical lifespan in an aquarium: 1–2 years. Almost every animal sold in a shop is a juvenile, so the tank has to suit the size in the first line rather than the size in the bag.

Shape, which is what the compatibility engine reads instead of length alone: elongate with a grazing or sucking mouth. Assigned from what is typical of Thiaridae, not examined for this species.

Water and tank requirements

Substrate depth matters more than tank size — the species lives in the sand rather than on it.

Temperature (°C)

Malaysian trumpet snail

20–30

Scale: 0 to 36 °C.

pH (pH)

Malaysian trumpet snail

7–8.5

Scale: 4 to 9.5 pH.

Hardness (°dGH)

Malaysian trumpet snail

6–25

Scale: 0 to 30 °dGH.

The bands AquariumHQ publishes for the malaysian trumpet snail, each drawn against the full range this catalogue uses for that parameter. A narrow band on a wide scale is a specialist; a wide one is a genuinely tolerant animal. Source: AquariumHQ husbandry position for this record — an editorial range, not a measurement

Where these figures come from

Habitat class

Lowland floodplain

Seasonally inundated flat country — várzea, chaco, swamp margin — where the water body changes size, depth and chemistry through the year.

The habitat's defining feature is change, so a single band describes it badly. Species from here are generally tolerant of a wide range and intolerant of nothing much — which makes them easy to keep and easy to keep wrongly.

Conductivity: 40–300 µS/cm
Flow: still
Dissolved oxygen: low
Seasonality: strong

These are figures for the KIND of water body, not measurements of this species. They are AquariumHQ’s summary of the general limnology and are given wide because the water is.

TemperatureFollows the habitat this animal comes from: Follows the water this animal is recorded from — lowland floodplain. Lowland floodplain generally runs 22–32°C, and the advised band of 20–30°C is consistent with it. This is AquariumHQ's reasoning from the habitat, not a measurement of the species. A source does publish a figure for this parameter, and it answers a different question — an environmental range or a laboratory tolerance rather than a keeping recommendation. It is held alongside this band rather than behind it.
pHFollows the habitat this animal comes from: Follows the water this animal is recorded from — lowland floodplain. Lowland floodplain generally runs 6–7.5, and the advised band of 7–8.5 is consistent with it. This is AquariumHQ's reasoning from the habitat, not a measurement of the species.
General hardnessSet by a requirement of the animal: Hardness here is a shell requirement, not a habitat statement. A snail or mussel builds and repairs aragonite continuously, and in water without dissolved calcium the shell erodes faster than the animal can replace it — visibly, at the apex first. The band is therefore set by what the animal has to take out of the water rather than by what its river happens to contain, and several of these species are recorded from water considerably softer than the band advises.

AquariumHQ advises

20–30

The habitatLowland floodplain

22–32

Scale: 18.2 to 33.8 °C.

Temperature: AquariumHQ's advised band against the habitat it is drawn from. Source: AquariumHQ advised range; habitat envelope is AquariumHQ's summary of the general limnology for this class of water body.

AquariumHQ advises

7–8.5

The habitatLowland floodplain

6–7.5

Scale: 5.6 to 8.9 pH.

pH: AquariumHQ's advised band against the habitat it is drawn from. Source: AquariumHQ advised range; habitat envelope is AquariumHQ's summary of the general limnology for this class of water body.

Requirement	Value	Notes
Temperature	20–30 °C (68–86 °F)	Stability matters more than hitting an exact figure.
pH	7–8.5	A stable pH outside the ideal band is usually better than an unstable one inside it.
General hardness	6–25 °dGH	Check your supplier's published figure before choosing species.
Minimum volume	20 L (5 US gal)	A floor, not a recommendation.
Minimum footprint	30 cm long	Substrate depth matters more than tank size — the species lives in the sand rather than on it.
Water flow	low	Match the outflow to this rather than to the filter's rating.
Lid required	Recommended	Reduces evaporation and prevents accidents.

Behaviour

Burrows through sand during the day and emerges at night.
A sudden mass emergence in daylight is a recognised warning sign of a water quality problem.

Feeding

Diet type: Detritivore
Staples: Detritus in the substrate, Uneaten food, Biofilm

Breeding

Strategy: Livebearing and parthenogenetic — a single individual founds a population
Difficulty: incidental
Parental care: none

Tankmates and compatibility

Assessments are derived from stored traits by the compatibility engine, with the reasoning shown. A verdict is a statement about probability, not a guarantee — individual temperament can override it.

Risk this species poses to common tankmates
Towards	Risk	What it means
Small fish	none	Anything that fits in the mouth is at risk once this species reaches adult size.
Adult dwarf shrimp	none	Cover reduces losses but rarely prevents them where the risk is high.
Shrimplets	none	Determines whether a shrimp colony can grow rather than merely persist.
Snails	none	Applies to snails you wanted as well as snails you did not.
Long or trailing fins	none	Fin damage is an entry point for secondary infection.
Plants	none	Tough species such as Anubias and Java fern survive most grazers.

Any pair in the catalogue can be assessed with the compatibility checker.

Welfare considerations

Points where the way this species is commonly sold or kept differs from what it actually needs.

Population size is set by how much you feed the tank. A trumpet snail explosion is a feeding problem, not a snail problem.
Effectively impossible to remove once established. Introduce deliberately or not at all.

Problems to watch for

Most problems in a tank containing this species are general rather than species-specific. Start with the troubleshooting index and work from the observation rather than from a guess at the cause.

What AquariumHQ does not yet hold

Species-level disease susceptibility is modelled in the graph and is not yet populated. Health pages will not be published until each condition has veterinary sourcing, because health content written without evidence is the most harmful thing this product could publish. The gap is recorded in the coverage report.

Where it comes from

Native range: Native to Africa and southern Asia; introduced worldwide
Habitat: Soft sediment in warm fresh water; burrows by day.

What the checklists say

166 distribution statements retrieved from GBIF checklists. Establishment means is reproduced from the source where it states one, and left unstated where it does not — a record of presence is not a record of origin.

Status	Places	What this means
Native	3	A checklist states the species occurs here naturally.
Introduced	125	A checklist states the species arrived here with human help. That is not a statement that it is established, harmful or illegal.
Recorded as present, establishment means not stated	38	The source records the species as present and does not say whether it is native or introduced. AquariumHQ does not fill that in.

Legal status and responsible practice

Restriction note

Established worldwide as an introduced species, and restricted in a few jurisdictions. Check the local position before acquiring, and never release or dispose of substrate into a watercourse.

Where this species has been introduced, and what followed

Two databases on two continents hold records for this species, and they are not two accounts of one event. They are separate introductions with separate causes, and the differences between them are the most informative thing on this panel.

United States and worldwide

Established

Imported by the aquarium industry as early as the 1930s, with some early populations most likely beginning from local aquarium hobbyists' releases. Also spread with rice cultivation.

Deliberate aquarium releaseSomebody took the animal out of a tank and put it into open water. The commonest reason is that the fish outgrew the aquarium, which is why size at maturity is a conservation question as well as a welfare one.
Arrived with a shipment of something elseThe organism was not the thing being shipped. Snails on aquarium plants, clams in shellfish consignments, apple snails in farmed crayfish.
Spread from an existing introduced populationMovement along connected water from a population already established. This is why a single introduction is not a single event.

What has been established

Carries parasites or pathogensReported in the literatureAn intermediate host of the Oriental lung fluke Paragonimus westermani, the Chinese liver fluke Clonorchis sinensis and several other trematodes, some of which infect humans. It also hosts an introduced trematode that parasitises many fish species including the endangered fountain darter.USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database credits: Mitchell et al. 2007; India Biodiversity Portal 2018
Competition with native speciesInferred from the animal's biologyMay outcompete and replace native snails, and will consume benthic fish eggs.USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database credits: Mitchell et al. 2007; Phillips et al. 2010

The snail most often introduced to a tank accidentally, on plants, and the one most often disposed of deliberately. Both halves of that are pathways.

USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database · Species Profile — Means of Introduction; Species Profile — Impact of Introduction · read 2026-08-29. A United States database: the routes and effects recorded here are the ones documented there, and say nothing about other regions.

Europe — recorded in 22 countries, first in Austria in 1958

Established

The aquarium pathway is recorded twice, once flagged LOW uncertainty, alongside plant contamination and the movement of habitat material. This is the profile of a species that travels in substrate and on plants as much as it is deliberately released, and the 1958 Austrian first record predates most of the modern trade.

Deliberate aquarium releaseSomebody took the animal out of a tank and put it into open water. The commonest reason is that the fish outgrew the aquarium, which is why size at maturity is a conservation question as well as a welfare one.
Arrived with a shipment of something elseThe organism was not the thing being shipped. Snails on aquarium plants, clams in shellfish consignments, apple snails in farmed crayfish.

What has been established

Carries parasites or pathogensReported in the literatureRated MEDIUM against animal health and MEDIUM against human health. Melanoides tuberculata is an intermediate host for trematodes including Opisthorchis and Centrocestus species.
Competition with native speciesReported in the literatureRated LOW against nature protection and restoration. In much of Europe the species survives only in heated water, which is a real constraint on what it can do.

Almost every planted aquarium acquires these eventually and almost nobody buys them. That is the pathway working exactly as EASIN classifies it: a contaminant on plants, not a released pet.

EASIN — European Alien Species Information Network · EASIN catalogue record R09246 (apixg/catxg) · read 2026-08-30. A European network: the routes and effects recorded here are the ones documented in Europe. EASIN compiles national inventories, DAISIE and CABI rather than measuring, and its pathway assignments carry its own uncertainty flags, which are reported above where it sets them.

What AquariumHQ has recorded, by jurisdiction, with the instrument each entry comes from and how far the check went. Ecological risk and legal status are separate: a species can be ecologically risky and legally unrestricted, or restricted where it could never establish.

EU

Not verified by AquariumHQpossession

No restriction was identified in the sources AquariumHQ checked for the EU as of 2026-08-11. That is not a finding that keeping, selling or moving this species is lawful there: sub-national rules, permit regimes and trade-specific requirements exist that these sources do not cover, and lists are amended. Check with the relevant authority before acquiring, selling or moving any animal.

Instrument recorded, species entry not re-checked · last checked 2026-08-11 · AquariumHQ has recorded the instrument and what it does, but has not re-confirmed this species' entry against the current consolidated text. Listings are amended, so treat this as a pointer to the right law rather than as a confirmation of the current position, and check with the authority before acting.

US

Prohibitedrelease

Widely established outside its native range, largely through the aquarium and ornamental plant trade. It travels as eggs and juveniles on plants rather than being deliberately moved, which is why plant disposal matters.

Instrument: State regulations; established populations are documented in the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database

Never release aquarium life into the wild

Aquarium animals, plants, and aquarium water must never be released into ponds, rivers, canals, drains or the sea — not even in a country where the species is sold freely. Released fish and invertebrates establish populations that displace native species, and released plants and water carry pathogens, parasites and fragments capable of spreading without any animal at all. If you can no longer keep an animal, rehome it through an aquarium society, a retailer that accepts returns, or another keeper.

Rehome through a local aquarium society, a specialist retailer or another keeper.
Unwanted plants go in household waste or a hot compost heap, never in a watercourse or a garden pond.
Never empty a bucket of tank water into a drain that discharges to open water.
If an animal is beyond rehoming, ask an aquatic veterinarian about humane euthanasia rather than releasing it.

Legal status is recorded from the sources named and was correct on the verification date shown. Rules change, and sub-national rules often differ from national ones. Check the current position with the relevant authority before acquiring, selling or moving any animal or plant.

Evidence

Every stored value with the kind of support behind it and where to check it. Evidence type and confidence are separate axes: an editorial position held confidently and a measurement held tentatively are different things.

Claim	Value	Evidence type	Confidence	Source
scientific name	Melanoides tuberculata	Observed / measured	high confidence	Catalogue of Life; GBIF — Global Biodiversity Information Facility
native range	Native to Africa and southern Asia; introduced worldwide	Observed / measured	moderate confidence	GBIF — Global Biodiversity Information Facility
adult size	2–3 cm	Aquarium-literature consensus	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
lifespan	1–2 years	Aquarium-literature consensus	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
temperature	20–30 °C	Aquarium-literature consensus	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
ph	7–8.5 pH	Aquarium-literature consensus	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
general hardness	6–25 °dGH	Aquarium-literature consensus	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
minimum tank volume	≥ 20 L	AquariumHQ editorial position	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis
minimum tank length	≥ 30 cm	AquariumHQ editorial position	moderate confidence	AquariumHQ husbandry synthesis

Last reviewed 2026-08-10. Values labelled as an aquarium-literature consensus are AquariumHQ editorial positions rather than measurements — see how evidence is handled.

Why we say this

What each figure on this page rests on, and how far that is from being independently established.

Every figure on this page has a provenance. Open any claim to see what AquariumHQ holds for it, which sources say what, and what a claim of that kind actually needs. Different claims need different evidence: an accepted scientific name is settled by one authority, while a legal restriction needs a current primary instrument. A single source is often the right answer rather than a thin one.

scientific nameAquariumHQ's own position, externally checkableBased on a verified authoritative source.

AquariumHQ's own position on a claim an external source could support.

What this kind of claim needs: accepted scientific name and classification — 1 authoritative source in an appropriate context. Checked against gbif on 2026-08-11. One authoritative backbone is what this class requires.

What would improve this: Go and read a source. This is reachable and has not been reached.

native rangeAquariumHQ's own position, externally checkableBased on a verified authoritative source.

AquariumHQ's own position on a claim an external source could support.

What this kind of claim needs: where the species occurs — 1 authoritative source in an appropriate context. 166 distribution statements held from GBIF checklists — native in 3, introduced in 118 countries. Establishment means is reproduced from the source, never inferred from occurrence.

What would improve this: Go and read a source. This is reachable and has not been reached.

adult sizeOne sourceBased on a verified authoritative source.1 citation, 1 independent origin

A single source: India Biodiversity Portal 2018.

80 mm — USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database · Maximum recorded · Observed in the wild · checked 2026-08-29
20–27 mm — USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database · Typically observed · Observed in the wild · checked 2026-08-29

What this kind of claim needs: size a well-kept specimen reaches — no external source is required, provided AquariumHQ shows its reasoning. A source publishes a typical adult size for this species, separately from any maximum. That is the quantity this claim is about.

What would improve this: Corroborate against a second, independent source.

lifespanAquariumHQ's own position, externally checkableAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.

AquariumHQ's own position on a claim an external source could support.

What this kind of claim needs: what aquariumhq advises for keeping — no external source is required, provided AquariumHQ shows its reasoning. No external source is required for this class. AquariumHQ's position stands on its stated reasoning.

What would improve this: Go and read a source. This is reachable and has not been reached.

temperatureOne sourceAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.1 citation, 1 independent origin

A single source: A. Mitchell, personal communication.

18–32 °C — USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database · Optimal band · Observed in the wild · checked 2026-08-29

What this kind of claim needs: what aquariumhq advises for keeping — no external source is required, provided AquariumHQ shows its reasoning. The advised band does not rest on the observation held. Follows the water this animal is recorded from — lowland floodplain. Lowland floodplain generally runs 22–32°C, and the advised band of 20–30°C is consistent with it. This is AquariumHQ's reasoning from the habitat, not a measurement of the species. A source does publish a figure for this parameter, and it answers a different question — an environmental range or a laboratory tolerance rather than a keeping recommendation. It is held alongside this band rather than behind it.

What would improve this: Corroborate against a second, independent source.

phAquariumHQ's own position, externally checkableAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.

AquariumHQ's own position on a claim an external source could support.

What would improve this: Go and read a source. This is reachable and has not been reached.

general hardnessAquariumHQ's own position, externally checkableAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.

AquariumHQ's own position on a claim an external source could support.

What would improve this: Go and read a source. This is reachable and has not been reached.

minimum tank volumeAquariumHQ's judgement — no authority publishes thisAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.

No external authority publishes this. The rationale carries the reasoning.

What this kind of claim needs: minimum tank size — no external source is required, provided AquariumHQ shows its reasoning. No authority publishes this. AquariumHQ derives it, and the derivation is recorded with its inputs and assumptions.

What would improve this: Keep the rationale current. There is no source to find.

minimum tank lengthAquariumHQ's judgement — no authority publishes thisAquariumHQ's own position, derived from evidenced inputs.

No external authority publishes this. The rationale carries the reasoning.

What would improve this: Keep the rationale current. There is no source to find.

Guides relevant to this species

Chosen from this record's own traits rather than listed on every page.

Native, introduced and invasiveThis record carries an invasive or legal note, and those are five separate claims that are easy to read as one.
The kinds of water aquarium fish come fromThis record's water bands follow lowland floodplain, which is the kind of water this animal is recorded from.
Why fish size figures disagreeThe largest recorded specimen is far enough above the typical adult here to change what tank is appropriate.
How aquarium species get into the wildThis species has a documented introduction outside its native range, with the route recorded.
What a legal restriction on a species actually meansAquariumHQ holds a structured legal status for this species, and possession, sale, import and release are four separate questions.

Malaysian trumpet snail

Quick profile

What keeping this species involves

Identity and names

Adult size and growth

Water and tank requirements

Where these figures come from

Group size and social behaviour

Behaviour

Feeding

Breeding

Tankmates and compatibility

Welfare considerations

Problems to watch for

Where it comes from

What the checklists say

Legal status and responsible practice

Where this species has been introduced, and what followed

United States and worldwide

What has been established

Europe — recorded in 22 countries, first in Austria in 1958

What has been established

EU

US

Evidence

Why we say this

Guides relevant to this species