Well this weekend has been full of my battling Silverfish.
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| Silverfish 1.8 |
Unlike the real world pest... the Mincraft Silverfish are lithophilic spawners, they live INSIDE stone. They are unpredictable and dynamic. Unlike other mobs, that can spawn in full daylight. Silverfish are able to spawn MORE Silverfish. But on the good side, they can fade a way too.
Minecraft Wiki - Silverfish
I have started dismantling a Stronghold for its resources of Doors, Iron bars, Buttons and three types of Stone (Regular, Mossy and Cracked). It seems that 1 in 20 stone blocks have a Silverfish in them and they spawn when the block is broken. Once spawned others will spawn in the vicinity, breaking (without drop) the block they were IN. I have tried covering all stone in the area with dirt, this was only marginally effective as the spontaneous spawning can be quite far. Also the cover and uncover with dirt while mining is very time consuming. I next tried to mine stone with sand or gravel on top, in the hopes of crushing the mobs... I worked one time. Again, it was a lot of work to keep moving sand around. I then tried to cover the stone with running water in the hopes of pinning and drowning the beasts. This was also only marginally effective, difficult to see and mine through water and did nothing to keep other silverfish from spawning outside the water filled areas.
I have finally just given up and accepted that Silverfish happen. When they do, I try to kill them as fast as i can... if too many spawn... I run and they disapper back in to the stone.
