How to tame a nautilus and get nautilus armor in Minecraft

Feed a wild adult nautilus Pufferfish until hearts appear: each fish tames it with a 1 in 3 chance. Then put a Saddle on it and ride it, and you stop losing air underwater. All numbers below come from the Java Edition 26.3 game files. Bedrock Edition tames and rides it the same way; the chest odds are the Java ones.

A nautilus spawns in all nine ocean biomes, alone, between Y 38 and Y 58 (5 to 25 blocks below sea level), with water above and below it. Dive a little and look for a coiled shell drifting backwards. It is neutral: it only charges you if you hit it.

A zombie nautilus appears ridden by a Drowned holding a Trident. Kill the rider first: once it is alone, it can be tamed exactly like the living one.

Babies cannot be tamed. Pick an adult.

Only two items tame a nautilus: a Pufferfish or a Bucket of Pufferfish. Bring at least 3, more if you can.

• Bucket: pufferfish swim in Warm, Lukewarm and Deep Lukewarm Oceans. Use a Water Bucket on one to catch it. When you feed the bucket to the nautilus, you get the Water Bucket back.
• Fishing: with an unenchanted rod, about 1 catch in 9 is a Pufferfish (85% of catches are fish, 13% of fish are Pufferfish).

Hold the Pufferfish and use it on the nautilus. Each fish gives a 1 in 3 chance: hearts mean it is tamed, smoke means try again.

Once tamed, it follows the rules of a pet: it is yours, it no longer despawns, and a Lead works on it.

You can sit on a tamed nautilus without a Saddle, but you cannot steer it. Craft a Saddle from 3 Leather and 1 Iron Ingot, then use it on the nautilus, or sneak and use the nautilus to open its inventory and drop the Saddle in the saddle slot. The same screen has the armor slot.

Use the saddled nautilus with an empty hand to get on, then steer with the movement keys and look where you want to go.

• Air: while you ride, you get Breath of the Nautilus, renewed every 2 seconds. Your air bar stops going down, but it does not refill: surface first if it is already low.
• Speed: it is built for water and slow on land. Stay underwater for long trips.
• Dash: press Space (Jump) to shoot forward in the direction you look. The push is more than twice as strong in water as on land, and you can dash again after 2 seconds.

Copper, iron, golden and diamond nautilus armor cannot be crafted. Every chest in a shipwreck, an ocean ruin or a buried treasure rolls once for one of them:

One chest in five holds a piece of nautilus armor. A shipwreck has up to 3 chests, so it is the fastest place to farm. In a world with cheats, these commands give the nearest ones:

/locate structure minecraft:shipwreck

/locate structure #minecraft:ocean_ruin

For netherite, put a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template, the Diamond Nautilus Armor and a Netherite Ingot in a Smithing Table (see how to get netherite). Shears take the armor or the Saddle off again.

• Breeding: feed two tamed adults any fish or any bucket of fish (Cod, Salmon, Tropical Fish, Pufferfish, raw or cooked). A baby nautilus appears. Fish also heal a hurt nautilus and make a baby grow faster.
• Range: a tamed nautilus that nobody rides wanders up to 32 blocks away, or 16 if it wears a Saddle. Tie it to a fence with a Lead to keep it in place.
• Safety: it is immune to Poison. If it dies, it drops its Saddle and armor.