Coral Block

This article is about the live variant of the solid block. For the dead variant, see Dead Coral Block. For the non-solid block, see Coral. For other kinds of corals, see Coral (disambiguation).

Coral Block

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	6
Hardness	1.5
Luminous	0
Transparent	No
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No
Map color	25 COLOR_BLUE  20 COLOR_PINK  24 COLOR_PURPLE  28 COLOR_RED  18 COLOR_YELLOW
Note block instrument	Bass Drum
Sulfur cube archetype	Fast Flat

A coral block is a solid block that comes in five variants: tube, brain, bubble, fire, and horn.

Obtaining

Breaking

Coral blocks can be obtained only with a pickaxe enchanted with Silk Touch; if mined with a pickaxe not enchanted with Silk Touch, they drop the respective dead coral block.

Block	Coral Block
Hardness	1.5
Tool
Breaking time (sec)[A]
Default	17.5 (JE) 7.5 (BE)
Wooden	11.15 (JE) 1.15 (BE)
Stone	10.6 (JE) 0.6 (BE)
Copper	10.45 (JE) 0.45 (BE)
Iron	10.4 (JE) 0.4 (BE)
Diamond	10.3 (JE) 0.3 (BE)
Netherite	10.25 (JE) 0.25 (BE)
Golden	10.2 (JE) 0.2 (BE)
Options
Efficiency	000
Haste	001 1JEBE

Legend

• incorrect tool, drops nothing
• correct tool, drops nothing or something other than the block itself
• correct tool, drops the block itself
• italicized can be instant mined

Natural generation

Coral blocks naturally generate in coral reef structures, which can be found in warm oceans.

Trading

Wandering traders may sell 1 of any coral block for 3 emeralds.

Villager		Probability		Villager wants	Player receives	Trades in stock	Villager experience	Price multiplier
		JE	BE
Wandering Trader	Ordinary	6%	6%	3 × Emerald	Brain Coral Block	8	—	—
		6%	6%	3 × Emerald	Bubble Coral Block	8	—	—
		6%	6%	3 × Emerald	Fire Coral Block	8	—	—
		6%	6%	3 × Emerald	Horn Coral Block	8	—	—
		6%	6%	3 × Emerald	Tube Coral Block	8	—	—

Mob loot

In Bedrock Edition, wandering traders have a chance of 25% (increased by 1% per level of Looting) to drop 1 coral block when killed while showing the item as trade offer, if the player holds an emerald.

Usage

North

East

South

West

Example

Schematic of valid block placements for coral blocks with water around. Several ways are shown where the arrangement would cause coral blocks to stay alive or die.

Coral blocks can be used for building or as decoration blocks.

Placement

In order for a coral block to stay alive, at least one of the six directly adjacent blocks must be water or a waterlogged block. If placed outside of water, it transforms into its respective dead coral block after 3 to 4.95 seconds‌^{[Java Edition only]} or 2.25 seconds‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} — a grayscale version of the coral block. A coral block still dies if the game rule randomTickSpeed is set to 0.^[1] Once a coral block dies, it is not possible to turn a dead coral block into a live coral block.

In Bedrock Edition, coral blocks do not die if they are surrounded by any non-air blocks.^[2]

Sea pickle farm blocks

If sea pickles are planted on live coral blocks, using bone meal on the sea pickles increases the number of sea pickles and creates more sea pickles on nearby coral blocks. Specifically, they can spread to the original sea pickle's level or one level below, out to a horizontal taxicab distance of 2. This only works on living coral blocks, not dead coral blocks.

Sounds

Java Edition:

coral_block sound type
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	block.coral_block.break	subtitles.block.generic.break​	1.0	0.8	16
	​Block placed​[until: JE 26.4]	Blocks	When the block is placed	block.coral_block.place	subtitles.block.generic.place​	1.0	0.8	16
	​Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	block.coral_block.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit​	0.25	0.5	16
	​Something falls on a block	Entity-Dependent	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.coral_block.fall	subtitles.block.generic.fall​	0.5	0.75	16
	​Footsteps	Entity-Dependent	Walking on the block	block.coral_block.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.15	1.5	16

Bedrock Edition:^{[sound 1]}

stone sound type
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch
	​Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	dig.stone	subtitles.block.generic.break​	1.0	0.8–1.0
	​Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	place.stone	subtitles.block.generic.place​	1.0	0.8–1.0
	​Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	hit.stone	subtitles.block.generic.hit​	0.37	0.5
	​Footsteps	Players	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.stone	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.4	1.0
	​Footsteps	Players	Walking on the block	step.stone	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.3	1.0
	​Footsteps	Blocks	Jumping from the block	jump.stone	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.12	1.0
	​Footsteps	Blocks	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.stone	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.22	1.0

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Block tags	Translation key
Tube Coral Block	tube_coral_block	Block & Item	coral_blocks mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.tube_coral_block
Brain Coral Block	brain_coral_block	Block & Item	coral_blocks mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.brain_coral_block
Bubble Coral Block	bubble_coral_block	Block & Item	coral_blocks mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.bubble_coral_block
Fire Coral Block	fire_coral_block	Block & Item	coral_blocks mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.fire_coral_block
Horn Coral Block	horn_coral_block	Block & Item	coral_blocks mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.horn_coral_block

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Alias ID	Numeric ID	Form	Item ID[i 1]	Translation key
Tube Coral Block	tube_coral_block	coral_block / 0	-132	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.coral_block.blue.name
Brain Coral Block	brain_coral_block	coral_block / 1	-849	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.coral_block.pink.name
Bubble Coral Block	bubble_coral_block	coral_block / 2	-850	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.coral_block.purple.name
Fire Coral Block	fire_coral_block	coral_block / 3	-851	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.coral_block.red.name
Horn Coral Block	horn_coral_block	coral_block / 4	-852	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.coral_block.yellow.name

History

Java Edition

Java Edition Classic
May 21, 2009							Notch expresses interest in a suggestion regarding corals by user "solarblade".
Java Edition Infdev
June 28, 2010							Notch mentioned on his blog: "I tried adding corals, but it's really hard to draw a single block that looks like corals, since it's really more about crazy amounts of variation and diversity. But I do know that the corals will have tiny fish particles around them."
20100629							A coral block texture is added to terrain.png.
Java Edition Beta
May 17, 2011							An unused CoralTile class can be found in the jar file of a developer fork of Beta 1.2_02. The coral block would receive a randomized color depending on its coordinates.
Java Edition
October 5, 2012							Coral were jokingly teased in the fake snapshot 12marc40awesome, along with fish mobs and "fish blocks".
November 18, 2017							Coral were shown in a clip at MINECON Earth.
							Multicolored coral blocks were shown, alongside unimplemented slab variants.
1.13			18w09a				Added coral.
			18w10a				Each coral block variant now uses a unique texture.
			18w10d				Added coral reefs, allowing coral to generate naturally.
			18w14b				What was previously named "Coral" has been renamed to "Coral Blocks", and what was previously named "Coral Plants" have been renamed to "Coral".
							The blue, pink, purple, red, and yellow variants of all coral blocks have been renamed to tube, brain, bubble, fire, and horn, respectively.
			18w16a				Mining coral blocks now requires Silk Touch to drop them.
							Coral blocks now have a short delay before dying.
							Coral blocks no longer die as long as one side is touching water.
			pre6				Living coral blocks now have new sound events: block.coral_block.break, block.coral_block.fall, block.coral_block.hit, block.coral_block.place, and block.coral_block.step.
1.14			19w05a				Added wandering traders, which sell all types of coral blocks, making them renewable.
26.2			snap1				Added sulfur cubes, which have the ability to absorb coral blocks, providing the golf ball/fast flat effect to the mob.

Bedrock Edition

Bedrock Edition
1.4.0			beta 1.2.14.2				Added coral blocks.
							Coral blocks currently die only if they touch air or void blocks, meaning that coral technically do not need water to stay alive.
							Coral blocks with a damage/metadata value of 13 would display the following name: 'tile.coral_block..name'.
1.4.0			beta 1.2.20.1				Coral blocks with a damage/metadata value of 13 have had their name changed to 'tile.coral_block.blue_fan.name'.
1.5.0			beta 1.5.0.4				Coral blocks no longer die as long as one side is touching water.
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				Coral blocks can now be bought from wandering traders.
							The textures for brain and horn coral blocks have been changed to look the same as Java Edition's texture.
1.16.0			?				When buying from wandering traders, one emerald now purchases one coral block instead of three of the same type.
1.20.30			Preview 1.20.20.21				Decreased the hardness of coral blocks from 7 to 1.5.
							Increased the blast resistance of coral blocks from 0.9 to 6.
1.21.0			Preview 1.21.0.21				The different block states for the coral_block ID have now been split up into their own IDs.
26.20 Experiment Drop 2 of 2026			Preview 26.20.23				Added sulfur cubes, which have the ability to absorb coral blocks, providing the golf ball/fast flat effect to the mob.
26.30			Preview 26.30.20				Implemented all features from the "Drop 2 of 2026" experiment in vanilla gameplay.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Added coral blocks.
			1.91				Added wandering traders, which sell all types of coral blocks, making them renewable.

Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education
1.4.0							Added coral blocks.

Issues

Issues relating to "Coral Block" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• After players had placed 10 million coral blocks underwater in Bedrock Edition, Mojang donated US$100,000 to The Nature Conservancy to protect and restore coral reefs around the world.^[3]

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  Coral blocks naturally generating in a coral reef
• 
  All variants of coral blocks
• 
  Coral blocks within a coral reef

Development images

• 
  Prototype corals shown in a clip from MINECON Earth 2017
• 
  Unused code for a coral block can be found in a developer fork of Beta 1.2_02. This is an example of how it would look in-game using the unused texture from Infdev 20100629.

In other media

• 
• 
  Coral blocks on the key art for Coral Crafters Skin Pack
• 

References

External links

• "Block of the Week: Coral" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, March 2, 2022.