How to Find Slime Chunks in Minecraft (With or Without Seed)

You have a slime farm planned and a pickaxe in hand, but no idea which chunk to dig in. Learning how to find slime chunks comes down to one number: your world seed. On Java Edition, the seed and a chunk’s coordinates decide whether that chunk is a slime chunk.

Get the seed, enter it in a slime chunk finder, then check the chunk in game with the chunk border view (F3+G). If you can’t run the seed command on your server, there’s a route for that too.

What Makes a Chunk a Slime Chunk

Slime chunks aren’t random in the way most players assume. In Java Edition, the game combines the world seed with each chunk’s coordinates to decide, so the same seed always gives the same slime chunks. A different seed gives a different set.

About 1 in 10 chunks is a slime chunk, according to the Minecraft Wiki. Slimes spawn there in groups of four, below the layer of Y=40. Light level and weather don’t matter. So you dig down to Y=39 or lower and wait.

Swamps and mangrove swamps work differently: slimes spawn there between Y=51 and Y=69 in dim light, and they follow their own rules. This guide covers the underground kind.

Get Your Seed on an Apex Server

The route depends on your access level. Server owners have the most options, operators have one, and everyone else jumps to the next section.

Server Owner: Use the Console

The console runs commands with full permissions, so you don’t need to op yourself first. Console commands are typed without the leading slash.

1. Head towards your Apex server panel and start the server if it is not online.
2. Press the “Console” button near the top left corner.
3. Type seed in the text box and press Enter.

 
The console prints your world seed. Copy it somewhere safe; it’s the number the slime finder needs.

Server Owner: Read server.properties

The seed can also sit in the server.properties file, on the line that starts with level-seed. But this only works if someone typed a seed there before the world was created. When the line is blank, Minecraft picked a random seed, and the file won’t show it. Use the console method in that case.

To check the file, head towards your Apex server panel, click “FTP File Access” at the top left, and enter your password when prompted. Double click a file in the list to open it and edit it right in the panel. Open server.properties and look for level-seed. Our FTP guide covers the panel file editor in more detail.

Operator: Run /seed in Game

Operators can run the command in game. Type /seed in chat and the seed appears; click it to copy. On a multiplayer server, the command needs operator permission level 2 or higher. If you’re the owner and haven’t set yourself up yet, our guide on how to op yourself takes a minute.

No Op? Find the Seed Another Way

Without operator permissions, /seed does nothing for you. The easiest fix is to ask the server owner, who can run the command or read the seed from the console and share it with you.

If asking isn’t an option, our guide on finding a Minecraft seed on a server without OP covers two Java client-side routes. Read its section on risks and server rules first. Some servers treat seed extraction as cheating, and a ban costs more than a slime farm saves.

Map Slime Chunks With the Seed

With the seed in hand, open the Chunkbase Slime Finder. It’s a third-party web tool, not part of Apex.

1. Paste your seed into the “Seed” field.
2. Pick the Java version your world was generated in from the “Version” list.
3. Type your X and Z coordinates into the “X:Z” box and press “Go!“.

 
The map jumps to that spot and shows the slime chunks around it. Chunkbase lists Java versions from 1.7 up to the newest experimental builds, so pick the one that matches your world. Its own advice is to select the version that was used to generate the chunks you’re looking at.

Pick a slime chunk close to your base and write down its coordinates. Our guide on teleporting to coordinates helps if you’re an operator and want to jump there.

Confirm a Slime Chunk In Game

A map tool says yes. The game has the final word, so confirm before you build.

1. Press F3 to open the debug screen and read the XYZ line. Divide X and Z by 16 and round down; those are your chunk coordinates.
2. Press F3+G to show chunk borders. Our post on how to show chunk borders explains the view.
3. Stand inside the chunk the finder marked, then dig down to Y=39 or lower.
4. Clear a space at least 2.04 blocks wide, long, and tall.

 
That last number comes from the wiki: a slime needs a clear space of 2.04 by 2.04 by 2.04 blocks to spawn. Even a glass pane inside that space blocks the spawn. Slimes are hostile mobs, so Peaceful difficulty keeps them from appearing.

And be patient. Chunkbase warns that spawn rates are low even inside slime chunks.

Slime Chunk FAQ

About 1 in 10 chunks is a slime chunk in Java Edition. The seed and the chunk coordinates decide which ones.

Check three things. You need to be at Y=39 or lower, the space has to be at least 2.04 blocks in each direction, and the difficulty can’t be Peaceful. Even then, spawns are slow, so give it time.

Yes. In Java Edition the seed is part of the calculation, so a new world with a new seed has different slime chunks.