The Planted Tank Forum banner

Malaysian trumpet snail or assassin snail?

12K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  waterblossom  
#1 ·
I had one lone Malaysian trumpet snail that hitchhiked on a plant from my LFS but it wasn’t reproducing so I went back to my LFS and asked for a few more MTS. They gave me a handful of them but I noticed they looked a bit different from the one I have currently.

I’ve never had one, but I think assassin snails usually have more distinct stripes and ridged shells from some photos I have seen before. The snails in the photo below don’t have the same strong markings but they have ridged shells and don’t seem to be as elongated as I would have expected for an MTS of that size.

About half of them have burrowed but I believe both MTS and assassins burrow so I’m not too sure.... 😞 Can anyone confirm that these are MTS? Are they perhaps a different type of snail other than MTS or assassin?
 

Attachments

Discussion starter · #3 ·
Those don't look like malaysian trumpet snails to me. But I'm not familiar enough with rabbit snails to say if that's what you have, either.
Oh I’ve never heard of rabbit snails before! But I looked up pictures and it’s a much closer match than an MTS. The ridges of rabbit snails are prominent, but like MTS, the conical shape of their shell seems more elongated than the ones I have... 😞
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
Doesn't quite seem like MTS to me, MTS are usually a solid color shell (in most cases) ranging from light to dark brown and the conical shell is more elongated (think unicorn horn). Hard to tell from the lighting but I don't think they're assassin's either. The coloration seems right for assassin's but could be rabbit snails. I'd say the real way to distinguish is to see if you can get one of them to go on the glass, assassin's have a pretty distinct soft-body look from other snails.
I caught a picture of one on the glass. Sorry about the blurriness, my camera can never seem to capture through glass/water that well. But it has a base and then one of those tube-looking mouths like the MTS.
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
They might be Tarebia granifera (Spike Tail Trumpet Snail). I don't have photos of these kind of snails.

Also for baby assassin snails, their distinctive pattern & color is already evident even at small size. Here's a photo of a baby assassin and it's just a bit bigger than the grains of aquasoil.
View attachment 867455
Spike tail trumpet snail! That must be it 🙂 I looked up some pictures and my snails look almost exactly the same! Thank you for the ID 🙂