Added in the 1.17 Caves and Cliffs Update, glow squids are one of the newer mobs added to Minecraft. They are similar to regular squids in behavior and shape, however, they have a distinct light-blue glow to them. Instead of dropping black ink sacs, used for black dyes, glow squids drop glow ink sacs.
Glow ink sacs are a very special item, as they can be used to make glowing signs and glowing item frames. Players looking to make a lot of signs like these are going to need a lot of glow ink sacs, but spelunking around for hours in search of glow squids underground can get tedious. Luckily, there is a fairly easy way to farm glow squids directly.
How To Farm Glow Squids
The spawn properties for glow squids are rather straightforward. They will spawn in groups of two to four, in complete darkness underwater, below the Y=30 height coordinate. Because of this Y=30 requirement, players will be required to go moderately far underground (at least 34 blocks below sea level) to build their farm. It is recommended that they seek out a large open cavern, such as a dripstone cave, so that there is lots of room to work with.
Here are all the resources that players will require in order to build a glow squid farm:
- Two water buckets
- Eight magma blocks
- One hopper minecart
- Six rails
- Two powered rails
- Two levers
- One hopper
- One chest
- Lots of building blocks
To begin, players should establish where they want their collection point to be. Do note that this spawner will extend ten blocks higher than the chest, so the chest should be no higher than Y=20, for glow squid spawns to occur maximally. Build an eight-block-long row of blocks to this chest, with a hopper as one of the end pieces, leading into the chest. Place rails along the entirety of this row, with a powered rail at each end. Place a block at the end of either side of the rail, then put activated levers on both of these blocks.
One block above every rail, place a magma block, then build a 7×8 slab of solid blocks off the back of these magma blocks, as shown below. Because players want this farm to be completely dark inside, players should use building blocks that do not allow light to pass through.
Around the platform, build eight-block-high walls, as shown below. Then, take the two water buckets and use them to fill up the chamber with water. Start by filling the bottom layer, by placing two water sources with an empty space between them, creating an infinite water source. Players can then pick up this middle water source and use it to fill in more spaces. By making two adjacent walls of water source blocks, the entire layer will fill up automatically. Repeat this process for the bottom six layers.
Above the topmost layer of water, place down a layer of solid blocks. These are only temporary and will be removed shortly. On top of these blocks, place water sources along one side of the chamber. Specifically, it should be the side opposite the rail system.
Destroy the layer of temporary blocks and cover up the top of the chamber, making it completely dark inside. Finally, place a hopper minecart on the track below, and push it, such that it starts going back and forth indefinitely. The farm is officially up and running.
To increase spawn rates, players should try to remove any other potentially spawn areas nearby. If there are other water sources in the cave, players should either remove them or make sure they are well-lit enough to not allow glow squids to spawn.
To explain exactly how this farm works, glow squids and axolotls will both spawn on this farm. Axolotls who spawn will kill glow squids, whose dropped items will float up to the top of the water. The water flows up here will push the ink sacs above the magma blocks, which create bubble elevators that pull the items down to the floor of the chamber. The hopper minecart underneath these magma blocks will suck up the items through the blocks, and deposit them into the chest.
