Tropical fish in Minecraft

Tropical fish are colorful sea creatures in Minecraft that live in warm oceans. They are ideal for aquariums and can be collected in buckets.

Written on Jul 2, 2025

Properties

  • Life points - 3 (1.5 hearts)

  • Behavior - Swim in groups, flee when approached

  • Size - about 0.6 blocks long

Spawn conditions:

  • Biome - Warm Ocean & Coral Reef

  • In groups of 3-5

Diversity & variants

  • Tropical fish exist in over 3,000 possible varieties

  • Differentiation by body shape, pattern, main & secondary color

  • 22 named variants can be specifically created via spawn egg or bucket

z.e.g. "Angelfish", "Pufferfish species", "Zebra".

Catch & Transport

  • With a fishing rod (as a tropical fish item) - cannot be cooked

  • With a bucket of water - tropical fish in the bucket retains color & variant

  • Tropical fish from buckets keep name, properties & do not despawn

Use

Decoration:

  • Perfect for aquariums or ponds

  • Can be combined with sea lanterns, corals & sea grass

Nutrition:

  • Can be eaten raw (low saturation)

  • Cannot be cooked - ideal only as an emergency reserve or food

Cat taming:

  • Works like other fish (but more inefficient than cod or salmon)

Tips

  • Use buckets instead of rods to get colors

  • Design aquariums with glass & colored light for maximum effect

  • Select specific variants in creative modes via spawn egg

Trivia

  • Tropical fish were introduced with version 1.13 ("Update Aquatic")

  • They play a role in the taming of Axolotln

  • Tropical fish in the bucket is saved as a separate item with NBT data

Tropical fish

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Overview

Developer

Mojang

Studio

Mojang

Release

May 17, 2009

Genres

Adventure, Open-World, Survival, Sandbox

Platforms

Linux, Windows, Mac OS X

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