What Do Axolotls Eat in Minecraft: Feeding Guide

Abdul Wasay Khatri | Administrator

Last updated: 1 February, 2026

Axolotls are some of the cutest aquatic mobs in Minecraft, but figuring out what they actually eat can be confusing. The game doesn’t give you much guidance, and trying random fish items usually ends in disappointment. Let’s break down exactly what axolotls eat, why it matters, and how to keep your underwater friends healthy.

The Simple Answer

Axolotls eat tropical fish buckets and only tropical fish buckets. Raw tropical fish items, cooked fish, or any other food won’t work. You need to catch a live tropical fish in a water bucket, then feed that bucket to your axolotl. This is the only food item axolotls recognize in Minecraft.

When you feed an axolotl a tropical fish bucket, it serves two purposes: healing injured axolotls and speeding up baby growth. Adult axolotls don’t need regular feeding to survive, but you’ll want tropical fish buckets handy for breeding and health management.

Why Tropical Fish Buckets Matter

Most Minecraft animals eat simple items you can find or craft easily. Cows eat wheat, chickens eat seeds, and pigs eat carrots. Axolotls break this pattern by requiring something more complex a bucket with a live fish inside.

This makes sense from a realism standpoint. Real axolotls are carnivorous predators who hunt live prey in the water. Minecraft mimics this behavior by making them eat whole live fish rather than processed food items.

The bucket requirement also ties into Minecraft’s ecosystem mechanics. You can’t just kill tropical fish and collect their drops for easy feeding. You have to travel to warm oceans, catch live fish, and bring them back. This creates a gameplay loop where maintaining axolotls requires ongoing ocean exploration.

Here’s what happens when you feed an axolotl:

For adults: Each tropical fish bucket restores health if the axolotl took damage from fighting or other sources. A fully healthy axolotl won’t show any visible change when fed, but the food isn’t wasted it still counts toward breeding cooldowns.

For babies: Tropical fish buckets accelerate growth by 10% per feeding. A baby axolotl normally takes 20 minutes (one Minecraft day) to reach adulthood. Feed it ten tropical fish buckets and it grows up instantly.

Where to Find Tropical Fish

Tropical fish spawn exclusively in warm and lukewarm ocean biomes. Warm oceans have bright turquoise water and coral reefs scattered across the seafloor. Lukewarm oceans show lighter blue-green water with occasional kelp forests. Both biomes support tropical fish populations.

Mangrove swamps also contain tropical fish swimming among the tangled roots. These swamps generate at the edges of some jungles and offer an alternative fishing spot if oceans are far from your base.

Tropical fish swim in schools of 3-9 fish. They come in countless color and pattern combinations over 3,000 variations exist in the game’s code. Thankfully, axolotls don’t care about specific patterns. Any tropical fish works for feeding, whether it’s bright orange, striped blue, or spotted yellow.

Don’t bother trying to breed tropical fish for a renewable supply. Unlike most Minecraft animals, tropical fish can’t be bred in captivity. You must return to ocean biomes periodically to restock your supply.

How to Catch Tropical Fish in Buckets

Equip an empty water bucket from your inventory. Swim toward a tropical fish and get close enough to aim directly at it. Right-click (or your use item button) on the fish.

The fish disappears from the water and your empty bucket transforms into a “Bucket of Tropical Fish.” The bucket’s tooltip now shows an icon of the fish you caught, though the specific pattern doesn’t affect feeding mechanics.

Catch multiple fish during each ocean trip. Breeding two axolotls requires two buckets minimum. Raising a baby to adulthood quickly needs ten more buckets. Stock up with 15-20 buckets of tropical fish per trip to avoid constant back-and-forth travel.

Store your tropical fish buckets in chests near your axolotl enclosure. Unlike raw fish items, bucketed fish never despawn or spoil. They remain perfectly usable forever.

Feeding Your Axolotls

Walk up to an axolotl while holding a bucket of tropical fish. Right-click on the axolotl. The bucket empties, leaving you with a regular water bucket, and the axolotl shows a brief animation either heart particles for breeding or sparkles for healing.

You can’t force-feed axolotls continuously. After eating, adult axolotls enter a five-minute cooldown before accepting more food. This cooldown only affects breeding preparation you can still feed different axolotls without waiting.

Baby axolotls accept food without cooldowns. Feed them repeatedly with tropical fish buckets to rush their growth if you’re impatient.

What Axolotls Don’t Eat

Players constantly try feeding axolotls the wrong items. Here’s what definitely doesn’t work:

Raw tropical fish items: These drop when you kill tropical fish with weapons. Despite being called “tropical fish,” they’re not what axolotls eat. The game considers these different from bucketed fish.

Other fish types: Salmon buckets, cod buckets, and pufferfish buckets don’t work. Raw or cooked versions of these fish also fail. Only tropical fish buckets matter.

General animal foods: Wheat, seeds, carrots, potatoes, and other standard animal foods get ignored. Axolotls aren’t programmed to recognize anything except tropical fish buckets.

Mob drops: Rotten flesh, spider eyes, and other carnivore-appropriate items don’t work either. The game keeps axolotl diets very specific.

This pickiness frustrates new players who expect axolotls to eat like other tameable mobs. Just remember: if it’s not a bucket with a living tropical fish inside, axolotls won’t touch it.

Keeping Axolotls Without Constant Feeding

Good news axolotls don’t starve. Unlike real animals, Minecraft axolotls survive indefinitely without food. You only need to feed them in specific situations:

When breeding: Both parent axolotls must be fed tropical fish buckets to enter love mode and produce a baby.

When healing: Combat with drowned, guardians, or elder guardians injures axolotls. Feed them to restore health faster than natural regeneration.

When rushing baby growth: Babies grow up automatically after 20 minutes, but tropical fish buckets speed this up if you’re building an axolotl army quickly.

Outside these scenarios, your axolotls stay happy swimming in their pool without meals. Build a nice aquarium, keep the water clean, and they’ll thrive without daily feeding routines.

Building a Tropical Fish Farm

Since tropical fish don’t breed, you can’t create a traditional farm. However, you can build a collection pool that makes catching them easier.

Find a warm ocean biome and section off a large area with glass or solid blocks. Leave the top open so tropical fish continue spawning naturally inside your boundaries. This creates a controlled fishing zone where tropical fish are trapped and easy to catch.

Add soul sand water elevators or bubble columns to reach the surface quickly after catching fish. This saves time compared to swimming up from deep ocean floors.

Light up the area around your collection pool. This doesn’t affect tropical fish spawning (they spawn regardless of light level), but it prevents drowned from spawning and attacking you while you work.

Visit your collection pool every few Minecraft days. Tropical fish respawn regularly, giving you a renewable source without traveling to new ocean biomes constantly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do axolotls need food to survive?
No, they never starve or die from lack of food. Feeding only matters for breeding, healing, and growing babies faster.

Can I feed axolotls regular tropical fish items?
No, the raw tropical fish you get from killing fish don’t work. Only buckets with live fish work.

How many tropical fish buckets do I need for breeding?
Two buckets minimum one for each parent. You’ll want extras on hand for multiple breeding sessions.

Will axolotls eat fish that swim near them?
Axolotls attack and kill tropical fish, cod, salmon, and squid automatically, but this doesn’t count as “eating” for game mechanics. You still need to hand-feed them buckets.

Can I use a fishing rod to get tropical fish?
Fishing rods only catch raw fish items and treasure, never bucketed fish. You must manually catch tropical fish by right-clicking them with buckets.

Do different colored tropical fish give different benefits?
No, all tropical fish work identically regardless of their pattern or color. Pick whichever ones are easiest to catch.

How long does a bucket of tropical fish last in my inventory?
Forever. Unlike raw fish that could theoretically despawn if dropped, bucketed fish never expire or spoil.

Can I feed baby axolotls other foods to help them grow?
No, only tropical fish buckets affect growth speed. Nothing else works.

What happens to the bucket after feeding?
You get an empty water bucket back in your inventory. The tropical fish is consumed and gone.

Abdul Wasay Khatri
Administrator
Abdul Wasay is the founder and lead author of Axolotl Portal, a trusted site for axolotl care. He spent almost nine months learning about axolotls, including their tanks, feeding, water care, and common health problems. His knowledge comes from trusted vets, research, and real experience from long term axolotl owners. All Posts by