How to get Axum Bacterial Culture in Subnautica 2

Axum Bacterial Culture is a very pesky material to find and harvest in Subnautica 2. It’s very well-hidden and protected, but you’ll need to risk it if you want to craft a Metal Farm. As the name hints at, these handy little devices duplicate valuable metals so you don’t need to keep trekking back and forth.

Before you can harvest some Axum Bacterial Culture, you need to grab the Depth Module for your trusty Tadpole from the cave near Ruby’s second blackbox signal. This lets you reach deeper areas in the Tadpole, and even with the upgrade, your submarine will be reaching its limits.

Subnautica 2 Axum Bacterial Culture location

You can find multiple Axum Bacterial Cultures in the central glowing green pool in the Metal Farms cavern, about 75 degrees northeast of the Alien Ruins Research Base, 870 meters away. It’s roughly 450 meters down, which is why you need the Depth Module equipped on your Tadpole, and even that’s the deepest your Tadpole can get.

Be warned that this area is patrolled by a leviathan and other aggressive fish, making it a very dangerous location. Make sure you bring a Repair Tool for your Tadpole and some healing.

As demonstrated in the video above, this is the route you need to take to find Axum Bacterial Culture:

Head east from the Alien Ruins Research Base, dropping off the ledge and descending, and continuing east over the alien structure on the sea floor
Soon you’ll spot a big purple tube (it looks like a crab leg), which you need to follow towards the Angel Comb underneath the Alien Power Plant (it’s past Anita’s second blackbox signal, if you’ve got this task)
Go northeast from the Angel Comb, following another purple tube down a narrow ravine, until you reach an area with green-glowing pools and a bunch of pillar-like alien structures around the outside (these are Metal Farms)

Subnautica 2 Axum Bacterial Culture: A player looking at glowing green pools in the distance, inside a dark cavern. — Unknown Worlds

Subnautica 2 Axum Bacterial Culture: A player looking at an Axum Bacterial Culture on the ground inside a glowing green/yellow pool, while holding a Bioscanner. — Unknown Worlds

You’ll likely already have the blueprint for the Metal Farm if you’re hunting for Axum Bacterial Culture, but you can find it by scanning the said pillars in this area. Similarly, you can find the Feedback Resonator blueprint down here too.

Axum Bacterial Culture is a very rare material, but it’s made worse by what I assume is a bug that’s causing it to disappear when you harvest it, leaving you empty-handed. I recommend harvesting this material by carefully breaking the outershell using a tool like the Flashlight or Scanner, not the Survival Multitool.

Alongside Axum Bacterial Culture, you’ll also need the Mangalloy Ingots to craft a Metal Farm, which requires Titanium Ingots but also hard-to-find materials, Atacamite and Troilite.