How to Build a Glow Squid Farm in Minecraft [Complete Guide]

What Do You Need for a Squid Farm in Minecraft

This Minecraft glow squid farm will bring you around 600 glow ink sacs per hour. But you'll have to be AFK on a platform while the game's running in the background, so keep that in mind!

Also, there is some manual farming to collect items you must do beforehand. So here are all the items you'll need to build this glow squid farm:

• 44 Magma blocks
• 40 Powered rails
• 4 Normal rails
• 1 Minecart with hopper
• 4 Redstone blocks
• 264 Fence gates
• Some ladders for convenience
• 2 Chests
• Lots of scaffolding to reach the AFK hub
• 1 Hopper
• 50 Kelp
• Lots of water buckets (infinite water source will be used)
• 3 Tinted glass for good looks
• 91 Solid blocks on which glow squids spawn, like Stone blocks

Most of these items are a bit hefty to get and craft, since they use a lot of fairly easy to get materials, like wood and Redstone. But once you get them, get ready as we'll see how to build a glow squid farm in Minecraft!

Dig a 12 Blocks Deep 15x9 Hole Under Y-Axis Level 30

When you press F3 on your PC while playing Minecraft, you can see your in-game coordinates on the left. For this glow squid farm, you'll want to dig a hole or find a place close to level 30 on the height Y-axis on Minecraft patch 1.18 and up, or Y-coordinate 60 on older versions as that's where glow squid spawns are located. 

Once you're on this height level, you'll want to start by making a 15x9 hole that is 12 blocks deep. You can see how the hole should exactly look like below.

There's a chance you won't be able to find a place above ground that's on level 30 on the height Y-axis, so you can dig and farm glow squids underground as I did. Once you're there, dig 12 more blocks deep which should get you at Y-level 18, and then finish out the entire hole.

Place Normal and Powered Rail in a Circle in the Hole

Next up, you'll want to break a block on each side and replace it with a Redstone block. Afterward, place powered rails all around the hole on all sides. But on the corners, place normal rails to complete a whole circle around the hole.

You can place a normal minecart and drive around this little rollercoaster, but now there's no time for fun! We'll have to build the storage behind where our treasured glow ink sacs will go.

Dig a Small Hole to Place a Hopper Connected to Double Chests

On one of the sides, you'll want to break 1 powered rail and the block underneath it and dig a hole. Place a double chest facing toward the hole, and connect a hopper where you broke the rail alongside the ground block. If you're having a hard time connecting the hopper and adding the rails, you'll have to crouch by pressing Shift while placing these items!

You can also decorate the hole with a little bit of tainted glass as I did above. Make sure to create this hole with some of the best storage room ideas alongside an easy entrance to it as this is where you'll come and go to collect the glow ink sacs dropped in the chest!

Place Hopper Minecart on Rails

Once you get your storage room hole up, get right back in the hole. Now place a minecart with a hopper inside of it on the rails, and push it to make it start spinning all around!

Make sure you don't stop the hopper minecart by accident while you're building the next step. Because if you do, then even though glow squids will spawn, their dropped glow ink sacs won't be collected to go in the chest!

Build Magma and Stone Platform Above Rails

Now we'll be making the platform where you'll kill glow squids. So place magma blocks 1 block directly above the rails. Then just cover the whole empty middle with stone blocks and you've completed the killing platform for the glow squids!

It's very important you use stone blocks because glow squids spawn specifically on them. But if you don't have any stone blocks on hand, glow squids can also spawn on blocks like tuff, deepslate, andesite, diorite, and granite which can be easily mined underground.

Build 6-Block High Opened Fence Gates Wall Above Magma Blocks

This is definitely the hardest part of the build, so get ready as you're supposed to cover all sides with fence gates 6 blocks upward from the magma blocks. On the 9-block wide sides though, place the fence gates facing the other sides and not toward the hole like below.

Once you place all the fence gates, an even more annoying part comes up. Now you'll have to individually open each and every fence gate!

Place Water on the 5th Fence Gates In the Hole on 2 Sides 

It's best you make an infinite water source for this. Starting from one of the longer sides on the 5th fence gate upward, press Shift to crouch and place a water bucket on the gate itself. While doing so, skip 1 gate and add a water bucket on the 5th gate upward again so the water flows down.

You'll have to do this only on 2 sides and leave the rest. With the help of kelp, we'll make this hole have a normal water wave where glow squids will spawn!

Add Kelp on the Ground Where you Placed Water

It's easily noticeable where you've placed the water where glow squid spawns will happen. Underneath directly on those blocks, place kelp to the surface of the water on both sides where you added water buckets. 

This should fill in the whole hole with normal flowing water. If something goes wrong, place kelp everywhere on the sides where the water flows until the hole is filled!

Build a Temporary Platform Above the Hole and Place Water

The hard part's over and the farm's already over to start getting the distinct light blue glow of the ink sacs! Now by pressing Shift to crouch on the 6th fence gate, cover the hole with a temporary block, like dirt.

Then get your buckets ready with water, as you'll have to place water buckets only on one side so it flows on the other. Finally, just destroy the temporary blocks and you're all done with the hole where glow squids will come! 

Build an AFK Platform on Y-Axis Level 145

To start farming, get your scaffolding and build upward to Y-axis level 145. Make a simple AFK hub like below, and stand over there to farm glow squids directly!

And that's everything you need to know for how to build a glow squid farm. Minecraft has many ways for you to automatically farm anything, and making a gold farm will definitely help you more than just getting the glowing texture from the ink sacs of a simple glow squid!