Name: Ốc Sula Đốm Vàng - Yellow Spotted Poso Snail - Tép Sulawesi
Brand: Jack Shrimp

Sulawesi Snail · Lake Poso

Tylomelania cf. toradjarum

Yellow Spotted Poso Rabbit Snail

A dark grey-black body scattered with clear golden spots across head, foot and mantle edge, carried under a golden-brown, moderately ribbed shell. This is the best-supported identification in the spotted group — but the 'cf.' in front of the name stays.

Clear golden spottingLake PosoIdentification: likely

A rabbit snail is not a cleaning crew — it's a collector's animal, and it has to be kept like one.

— Jack Shrimp Farm

ORIGIN

Lake Poso, and why we keep writing 'cf.'

Garnelio, a careful German importer, sells its Yellow Spot as Tylomelania cf. toradjarum. T. toradjarum is a Lake Poso endemic with a shell to 54 mm, so both the locality and the size fit. The 'cf.' means 'compares with, not confirmed', and it earns its place: Lake Poso still holds around ten undescribed forms. By contrast, listings that print T. towutensis or T. towutica on a Poso animal are simply wrong — those are Lake Towuti species, in the Malili system.

DISTRIBUTION MAP

An ancient cradle

Sulawesi shrimp are endemic to a handful of ancient tectonic lakes — 1–4 million years old, among the oldest freshwater lakes on earth.

Lake MatanoHome of Cardinal & White Sock (C. dennerli)

Lake PosoHome of White Orchid, Blue Legs (C. “Poso”)

Towuti · MahalonaThe Malili lake system, linked by rivers

IDENTIFICATION

Identifying the Yellow Spotted Poso

🟨Golden spottingA dark grey to black ground colour carries distinct yellow-gold spots on head, foot and mantle edge. The spots are large and separated, not a fine dusting.

🐚Golden-brown shellElongate-conical, brown to golden-brown, with moderate ribbing. Noticeably paler than the near-black shells of the Yellow Antenna or Orange Poso.

📏Shell around 5 cmThe shell reaches about 5 cm, with 5.4 cm recorded for T. toradjarum. Shops quoting 5–8 cm are measuring the extended animal, not the shell itself.

🔍The 'cf.' stays'cf.' is how we say out loud that this is a probable identification rather than a confirmed one. Dropping it turns a good inference into a false claim.

WATER

Ideal keeping conditions

26–30°

Temp C

7.5–8.5

100–200

TDS ppm

6–12

3–8

The Sulawesi lakes are hot and alkaline but genuinely SOFT — Matano measures 28.7°C, pH 8.5, GH 7, KH 5 and around 87 ppm TDS. So do not chase a very high GH: a stable alkaline pH and enough KH to buffer it are what matter. Stability still beats perfect numbers.

SHELL

KH is what keeps the shell intact. An eroded apex is completely normal on a wild-caught adult — the warning sign is fresh erosion or pitting at the NEW growth near the aperture, which means KH and minerals in the tank are dropping.

SPECIES DATA

Yellow Spotted Poso data sheet

Species data

Scientific name: Tylomelania cf. toradjarum
Identification confidence: Likely, not confirmed
Origin: Lake Poso, Central Sulawesi
Names wrongly applied: T. towutensis / towutica
Adult size: ~5cm (shell)
Preferred substrate: Rock, wood and fine sand

Wild species — natural profile

T. toradjarum was described by Sarasin & Sarasin in 1897 and is one of the four formally named species of Lake Poso. That is why this spotted form rests on better documentation than most rabbit snails.

Origin: Lake Poso, Central Sulawesi — an ancient lake with four described Tylomelania, T. kuli, T. centaurus, T. toradjarum and T. carbo, plus roughly ten unnamed forms.

Natural habitat: It lives along the lake margins over rock and sand, where there is light enough for attached algae and biofilm to build up on stone and submerged timber.

Behaviour & diet: It rasps biofilm and detritus with its radula. In this genus the radula is the fastest-evolving organ, sorting the species by the substrate each one can graze.

Conservation: This is a wild-caught animal restricted to a single lake. Anything confined to one lake is inherently vulnerable to pollution and to over-collection.

Keeping note: Provide both hard grazing surfaces and an area of fine sand. Feed deliberately and regularly, because it eats far more slowly than the shrimp and fish around it.

BREEDING & SHELL

Why rabbit snails stay rare

🍼Live-bearing, not egg-layingMales and females are separate animals; the female broods in a uterine pouch and releases one fully-shelled crawl-away juvenile.

1️⃣One baby at a timeAbout one juvenile per female every 4–6 weeks (broods hold 1–7). This is exactly why rabbit snails stay rare and expensive.

🐢Very slow growthRoughly a year and about 4 cm to reach maturity. Lifespan 1–3 years, with records up to 5.

🐚Shell & mineralsHold KH 3–8 and feed enough calcium. An eroded apex is normal; erosion on new shell growth is the alarm.

HYBRIDISATION

Different Tylomelania species DO hybridise in aquaria. If you want to keep a line pure for breeding, keep one species per tank. Mixed-species tanks are for display only.

FOOD & SET-UP

The matching set-up

COMMON MISTAKE

Rabbit snails are NOT an algae crew. They graze biofilm and detritus, they will not clear a nuisance-algae problem, and they must be fed. Keeping them 'to clean the tank' is the single most common reason they quietly starve over a few months.

FEEDING

Omnivorous, mostly biofilm, detritus and blanched vegetables. Add White Powder + Yellow Powder 2–3 times a week, plus blanched pumpkin or cucumber for growth. A Sula Sand substrate holds the alkaline pH long-term and gives the soft-sediment species somewhere to plough for detritus.