How to make a sulfur cube farm in Minecraft is one of the most common questions players have after discovering this bouncy new mob from the Chaos Cubed update. You cannot breed sulfur cubes like animals, but you can duplicate them using the split-and-grow method. This guide covers everything you need to build a working sulfur cube farm from scratch.
- Sulfur cubes cannot be bred — duplication uses the kill-and-grow cycle instead.
- Killing a large cube splits it into two small cubes, which grow into large ones after 20 minutes.
- Feed small cubes slimeballs to speed up growth.
- Use a bucket to transport cubes safely from sulfur caves to your base.
- A dispenser loaded with a bucket of sulfur cube can automate deployment.
- Keep cubes in a walled pen so they don’t hop into lava or off ledges.
- Name a cube with a name tag to stop it despawning.
How Does Sulfur Cube Duplication Work?
There is no breeding mechanic for sulfur cubes. Instead, the duplication loop works like this: kill one large sulfur cube, it splits into two small cubes, wait 20 minutes for each small cube to grow into a large one, then repeat. Every kill doubles your population over time.
This is the same split mechanic used by slimes and magma cubes, but with one key difference. Sulfur cube small variants can grow up into large ones, which slimes cannot do. That means you can start with just one large cube and build a population over time without going back to sulfur caves to catch more.
Note that small sulfur cubes drop nothing when killed. Only large cubes split into small ones and drop the absorbed block if they had one. So only kill large cubes during your farm cycle — leave the small ones alive to grow.
What You Need Before You Build
- At least one large sulfur cube in a bucket — catch it in a sulfur cave
- Slimeballs — speed up small cube growth (get these from a mob farm or swamp slimes)
- Solid walls at least 3 blocks high — sulfur cubes hop but do not jump high enough to escape
- Name tags — apply to cubes you want to keep so they do not despawn
- Shears — to safely remove absorbed blocks without killing the cube
- A flat area away from lava — cubes will hop into hazards if not contained
How to Get Your First Sulfur Cube
Sulfur cubes only spawn naturally inside the sulfur caves biome at light level 0. Look for sulfur springs on the surface — they appear as small patches of yellow sulfur and red cinnabar blocks with noxious gas bubbling up. Dig straight down beneath one and you will find sulfur caves around Y-level -32 or lower.
Once inside, find a large sulfur cube and right-click it with an empty bucket to fill it. A bucketed sulfur cube does not count toward the mob cap and does not despawn, so you can safely carry it back to your base. The bucket tooltip shows any block the cube has absorbed. If you want a clean cube for your farm, use shears on it before bucketing to remove any block first.
For the best seeds to find sulfur caves quickly, see our best Minecraft seeds for 2026.
How to Build a Basic Sulfur Cube Farm Pen
The pen design is simple. Sulfur cubes hop around randomly and will walk off edges if not contained. Here is how to build a safe enclosure:
Step 1 — Choose a Safe Location
Build your pen at your base, away from lava, water drops, and cactus. A flat stone floor works well. Avoid wood floors — cubes with absorbed TNT can be ignited and would destroy wooden builds. Use stone, cobblestone, or any solid non-flammable material from the full block list.
Step 2 — Build the Walls
Make a walled enclosure at least 10×10 blocks wide and 3 blocks tall. Sulfur cubes cannot jump more than 2 blocks high when unloaded with a block, so 3-block walls are enough. Do not use fences or walls — these are partial blocks and cubes can sometimes clip through them. Use full solid blocks only.
Step 3 — Add Lighting
Place torches or other light sources inside the pen. This does not affect sulfur cube spawning (they only spawn naturally in caves), but it stops other hostile mobs from spawning inside your pen and killing your cubes. Use copper bulbs or lanterns for a clean look.
Step 4 — Release Your Cube
Stand inside the pen and right-click with the bucket to release your sulfur cube. It will immediately start hopping around. Make sure the pen walls are fully closed before releasing or it will escape.
How to Run the Duplication Cycle
Once your cube is safely penned, follow this cycle to grow your population:
- Kill the large cube — it splits into two small cubes.
- Feed the small cubes slimeballs — each slimeball reduces their 20-minute growth timer. Feed several to speed it up significantly.
- Wait for them to grow — once fully grown, you now have two large cubes instead of one.
- Repeat — kill one large cube each cycle and let both offspring grow. Your population doubles every cycle.
Do not kill both large cubes at the same time unless you want to expand the farm faster. Killing one and letting the other stay large means you always have a large cube on hand without waiting.
How to Speed Up Small Cube Growth With Slimeballs
Slimeballs are the only way to speed up small cube growth. Hold slimeballs and right-click small cubes to feed them. Each slimeball reduces the remaining growth time. You can feed multiple slimeballs in a row. Build a mob farm targeting swamp slimes to keep a steady slimeball supply. Slimeballs also attract small cubes, so you can use them to herd cubes around the pen.
How to Stop a Cube From Growing
If you want to keep small cubes small permanently, feed them a golden dandelion. This stops their growth timer entirely. This is useful if you want a display of small cubes or need compact cubes for a specific build.
How to Automate Sulfur Cube Deployment With a Dispenser
A dispenser loaded with a bucket of sulfur cube releases the cube when triggered by a redstone signal. This is the core of automated sulfur cube contraptions. Here is how it works:
- Fill a bucket with a sulfur cube that already has a block absorbed.
- Load the bucket into a dispenser.
- When the dispenser fires, it releases the cube in front of it.
- Point the dispenser at a walled arena or track to control where the cube lands.
- Use a second dispenser with an empty bucket to recapture the cube and reload the first one.
This loop — dispenser fires cube, second dispenser recaptures it — is how players build automated minigames like pinball tables and bowling lanes. The cube keeps its absorbed block through the bucket cycle, so the archetype stays consistent. Read the full block absorption and archetypes guide to pick the right block for your design.
How to Transport Sulfur Cubes Using a Lead
If you want to move a sulfur cube without bucketing it, use a lead — but only after the cube has absorbed a block. Leads do not attach to cubes without an absorbed block. Once attached, you can drag the cube like any other leashed mob. This is useful for moving cubes short distances or positioning them in a build without dropping them from a bucket. Craft a lead using string and slimeballs at a crafting table.
How to Keep Sulfur Cubes From Despawning
Like all passive mobs, sulfur cubes can despawn if you move too far away. To prevent this:
- Name tag method — use an anvil to apply a name tag to the cube. Named cubes never despawn. They also keep their name when bucketed and placed back down.
- Bucket method — a cube stored in a bucket does not count toward the mob cap and does not despawn. Store spare cubes in buckets when not in use.
Always name your starter cube before beginning the farm. If it despawns before you get the population going, you will need to go back to the sulfur caves to catch another one.
Sulfur Cube Farm Tips and Common Mistakes
Do Not Farm Small Cubes for Loot
Small sulfur cubes drop nothing when killed. There is no loot table for them at all. Only large cubes drop the block they absorbed. So if you want to collect absorbed blocks, always kill the large cube, not the small ones. Let small cubes grow first, then kill the grown-up large cube if you want the block back.
Keep Water Out of the Pen
Some sulfur cube archetypes float in water and some sink. If water gets into your pen, cubes with heavy archetypes like iron or gold blocks will sink and drown. Cubes with wool or wood absorbed will float and could escape over lower walls. Keep the pen dry unless you are specifically testing water behavior.
Do Not Mix TNT Cubes Into the Farm
If a large cube with TNT absorbed splits when killed, the two small offspring retain the TNT archetype. They can be ignited. Keep TNT cubes completely separate from your main farm to avoid accidental explosions damaging your pen or your other cubes.
Watch the Mob Cap
Sulfur cubes count toward the passive mob cap. If your farm grows very large, it can push other passive mobs out of your world’s spawn quota. Keep the population at a manageable number. Bucketing excess cubes removes them from the mob cap while keeping them safe.
What Can You Farm Sulfur Cubes For?
Sulfur cubes do not drop XP or resources on their own, so a sulfur cube farm is not an XP grinder. The real value is population control and having cubes ready for specific uses:
- Minigame supply — keep a large stock of cubes with different archetypes ready for custom arenas.
- Redstone builds — use dispenser automation to send specific archetype cubes into circuits on demand.
- Block recovery — kill large cubes to recover rare blocks stored inside them without using shears.
- Decoration — a pen full of small cubes frozen with golden dandelions makes a great display in any base build.
For a full breakdown of what each absorbed block does to a sulfur cube’s physics, see our complete block absorption guide. To find sulfur caves and catch your first cube, check the sulfur caves location guide and the full sulfur cube mob guide.
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