Wannabe Axolotl wranglers rejoice: this page tells you absolutely everything you need to know in order to find, tame, and breed Axolotls in Minecraft. We’ll go over the Axolotl colour variants, spawn mechanics, what an Axolotl eats, and much more. So let’s dive in and meet the new most adorable mob in Minecraft.
How to tame and breed Axolotl in Minecraft
You cannot tame an Axolotl, but you can force it to breed with another Axolotl to produce a baby.
To get two Axolotls to breed, you need to get them near each other, and feed each of them a Bucket of Tropical Fish to get them to enter “Love Mode”. At this point they will breed with one another, producing a baby Axolotl.
Baby Axolotls will follow their parents until fully grown, which happens 20 minutes after birth. You can speed up the journey to adulthood by feeding the baby more Buckets of Tropical Fish.
You can also lead an Axolotl in a direction by approaching it and holding a Bucket of Tropical Fish in your hand, much like how a Pig will follow a carrot on a stick. This will help you when it comes to getting both Axolotls in the same place ready for breeding.
Note: Tropical Fish on its own does not do anything. You need to use a Bucket of Tropical Fish to have any effect on nearby Axolotls.
Minecraft Axolotl colours
There are five different possible colours of Axolotl: pink, brown, gold, cyan, and blue. The baby Axolotl will usually take after one of its parents in colour, but there is a 1 in 1,200 chance that it will instead become a rare blue Axolotl.
The colour has no effect on the creature itself. All Axolotl are functionally and behaviourally identical; even the ultra-rare blue variant has nothing which sets it apart from the other types besides its hue.
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Axolotl behaviour explained
Axolotls are naturally passive towards players but hostile towards all aquatic mobs except dolphins and turtles. If damaged, there is a high chance that an Axolotl will play dead. During this time it will heal any hit points lost, and it cannot be attacked by other mobs.
Axolotls can be attached to leads, and they can also be picked up in a Bucket of Water. An Axolotl that is picked up in this way, and then released later on, will never de-spawn.
Where do Axolotls spawn?
Axolotls spawn mostly in underwater caves in any biome. The exact rules for their spawning are as follows:
- They must spawn in a water block below Y-level 63;
- There must be a solid block of some sort above where it spawns;
- They can only spawn in pitch darkness (Light Level 0);
- They can only spawn within 5 blocks of a stone-type block (Stone, Deepslate, Granite, Diorite, Andesite, or Tuff).
This may seem like a fair few criteria, but Axolotls aren’t an uncommon sight in Minecraft 1.17, particularly if you’re in a very coastal location.
That’s everything you need to know about finding, taming, and breeding Axolotls in Minecraft 1.17. Now be sure to brush up on your knowledge of other 1.17 additions with our pages on how to find and use Copper, how to make Candles, and how to find and use Amethyst.
