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Japanese Trapdoor Snail
Cipangopaludina japonica
Family: Viviparidae
📍 Japan, China & Russia Far East
The Japanese Trapdoor Snail is a large, attractive freshwater snail with a smooth, olive-green to dark-brown rounded shell and a distinctive calcareous operculum (trapdoor) that seals the shell opening when the snail retreats. It is a peaceful, slow-moving scavenger and algae grazer well suited to ponds and large aquariums. Unlike mystery snails, it is livebearing and gives birth to miniature snails without an egg-laying stage.
Keeping this species
- diet
- Herbivore/Omnivore – algae, detritus, blanched vegetables, sinking pellets
- breeding
- Livebearing; slow reproduction; does not overpopulate
- lifespan
- 5–10 years
- max size
- 5 cm (2 in)
- tank size
- 10 gallons minimum; outdoor ponds suitable
- temperament
- Peaceful
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Tips from the community 💡
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Tanks keeping this 🐟
Kept by 1 hobbyistCommunity tanks featuring Japanese Trapdoor Snail.
Water it likes
- ph
- 7.0–8.0
- ammonia
- 0 ppm
- nitrate
- <20 ppm
- hardness
- 8–20 dGH
- temperature
- 39–82°F (4–28°C)
Natural Habitat Temperature
46°F — 79°F seasonal range · (Jan low, Jul high)