Tropical Fish

This article is about the mob in Minecraft. For the item, see Tropical Fish (item). For other uses, see Fish (disambiguation).

Tropical Fish

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Health points	3HP
Behavior	Passive
Mob type	Animal Aquatic
Hitbox size	In Java Edition: Height: 0.4 blocks Width: 0.5 blocks In Bedrock Edition: Height: 0.52 blocks Width: 0.52 blocks
Speed	0.7
Spawn	Mangrove Swamp Lukewarm Ocean Deep Lukewarm Ocean Warm Ocean Lush Caves
Usable items	Water Bucket

Tropical fish are common bucketable aquatic passive mobs found in warm or lukewarm oceans, mangrove swamps, and lush caves. There are 2,700 naturally occurring variants of tropical fish of different colors and shapes with unique names in Bedrock Edition and 3,072 in Java Edition.^[1]

Spawning

In Java Edition, random varieties of tropical fish spawn in groups of 8 in lukewarm or warm oceans (as well as their deep variants) and mangrove swamps at Y-level 50 to 63, and in lush caves in aquifers at any Y-level. They are subject to fish spawning requirements.

In Bedrock Edition, tropical fish spawn underwater at 12-32 blocks away from the player. Tropical fish spawn only in warm, lukewarm, deep lukewarm ocean biomes; lush caves, in groups of 3-5 for the same preset pattern, and in groups of 1-3 for a random pattern; and mangrove swamps. In addition, tropical fish in warm, lukewarm, and deep ocean variants can spawn only at Y levels between 50 and 64 and must be on the surface (i.e., there must not be a spawnable block above the spawn location with a non-solid block on top). Tropical fish in lush caves can spawn on aquifers at any Y levels but require underground.

Tropical Fish spawns in:

Category: Water ambient‌[JE only] Water creature‌[BE only]	Java Edition			Bedrock Edition
Spawn area	Spawn weight	Spawn chance	Group size	Spawn weight	Group size
Lush Caves[spawn 1]	25⁄25	100%	8	75	3–5
Mangrove Swamp[spawn 1]	25⁄25	100%	8	25	3–5
Deep Lukewarm Ocean[spawn 1]	25⁄38	65.79%	8	75	3–5
Warm Ocean[spawn 1]	25⁄40	62.5%	8	75	3–5
Lukewarm Ocean[spawn 1]	25⁄45	55.56%	8	75	3–5
Mangrove Swamp[spawn 1]	—	—	—	25	1–3
Lush Caves[spawn 1]	—	—	—	25	1–3
Lukewarm Ocean[spawn 1]	—	—	—	25	1–3
Deep Lukewarm Ocean[spawn 1]	—	—	—	25	1–3
Warm Ocean[spawn 1]	—	—	—	25	1–3

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Tropical fish are spawned twice.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Drops

On death

Java Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00
	Bone Meal	0–1	5.00%	0.05	0–1	5.00%	0.05	0–1	5.00%	0.05	0–1	5.00%	0.05

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	Bone Meal	0–1	1⁄20	1⁄20	0–1	1⁄20	1⁄20	0–1	1⁄20	1⁄20	0–1	1⁄20	1⁄20

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)
	Bone Meal	0	19⁄20 (95.00%)	19⁄20 (95.00%)	19⁄20 (95.00%)	19⁄20 (95.00%)
		1	1⁄20 (5.00%)	1⁄20 (5.00%)	1⁄20 (5.00%)	1⁄20 (5.00%)
		Average	1⁄20 (0.05)	1⁄20 (0.05)	1⁄20 (0.05)	1⁄20 (0.05)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
	Bone Meal	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05

Bedrock Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00	1	100.00%	1.00
	Bone	0–1	25.00%	0.25	0 / 2–3	26.00%	0.65	0 / 3–5	27.00%	1.08	0 / 4–7	28.00%	1.54

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	Bone	0–1	1⁄4	1⁄4	0 / 2–3	13⁄50	13⁄20	0 / 3–5	27⁄100	27⁄25	0 / 4–7	7⁄25	77⁄50

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)	1 (100.00%)
		Average	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)	1 (1.00)
	Bone	0	3⁄4 (75.00%)	37⁄50 (74.00%)	73⁄100 (73.00%)	18⁄25 (72.00%)
		1	1⁄4 (25.00%)	0	0	0
		2	0	13⁄100 (13.00%)	0	0
		3	0	13⁄100 (13.00%)	27⁄400 (6.75%)	0
		4	0	0	27⁄200 (13.50%)	7⁄150 (4.67%)
		5	0	0	27⁄400 (6.75%)	7⁄75 (9.33%)
		6	0	0	0	7⁄75 (9.33%)
		7	0	0	0	7⁄150 (4.67%)
		Average	1⁄4 (0.25)	13⁄20 (0.65)	27⁄25 (1.08)	77⁄50 (1.54)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Tropical Fish	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
	Bone	0.25	0.65	1.08	1.54

• 1–3XP when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior

Tropical fish tend to swim in schools of fish with a maximum of 7 tropical fish per school. Tropical fish are also able to go against the water flow.

The player may collect a tropical fish by using a water bucket on it, which gives the player a bucket of tropical fish. Using that fish bucket against a block empties the bucket, placing water with that fish swimming in it. Tropical fish placed via buckets do not despawn naturally.

Tropical fish cannot be bred, but only spawn in designated biomes.

Weaknesses

Tropical fish cannot survive out of water. Outside of water, they flop around for a while until eventually they suffocate and die. In Bedrock Edition, they rotate when flipping. Fish cannot swim or breathe in cauldron water.^[2]

Fish have a weakness to weapons that have the Impaling enchantment, which also affects aquatic mobs except drowned.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Axolotls always attack tropical fishes on sight but they will not attack another tropical fishes for a few times after that.

Varieties

Java Edition

When tropical fish spawn in the wild, 90% of the time they appear as schools of one of the 22 varieties in the first image, and the other 10% of the time their patterns, shape, and colors are completely random, drawn from any of 2 shapes, 6 patterns, 16 base colors, and 16 pattern colors. The color black is not supposed to appear on any naturally-spawned tropical fish, since the eyes are usually hard to see^[3], but due to a bug^[1] black can be chosen randomly. This results in 3,072 naturally-occurring combinations, instead of the intended 2,880.

Tropical fish can be summoned with black as one or both of their colors, and/or without any visible pattern,​ though even without the pattern they can still have a pattern color, causing a further 884 possible combinations, 480 of which look the same due to the missing pattern.

Bedrock Edition

Tropical fish do not have common varieties in Bedrock Edition. Instead, naturally spawned tropical fish have 2 spawn attempts: the first chooses one of the 22 preset variants, and the other uses randomly chosen patterns, sizes, shapes, and colors (except black). Tropical fish spawned from a spawn egg use randomly chosen patterns, sizes, shapes, and colors (except black). Using commands, tropical fish may be spawned as one of the 22 preset variants. Due to MCPE-117477, yellowtail parrot fish do not spawn, therefore only 21 preset variants exist on Bedrock Edition.​^{[until: BE 26.50]} The specific command used is /summon tropicalfish ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:fish_name.

Names

Tropical fish variants in buckets have names that are assigned based on their colors and type. In Bedrock Edition, the names are in the name of the bucket, giving names like "Bucket of Dottyback", "Bucket of Sky-Orange Snooper", or "Bucket of Orange-Lime Dasher". In Java Edition, the type, and colors are displayed as additional lines in the item tooltip.

In Bedrock Edition, the following colors are renamed from their defaults when they refer to tropical fish. Parentheses indicate default name and color id - see § Entity data.

• Sky (Light Blue; 3)
• Rose (Pink; 6)
• Silver (Light Gray; 8)
• Teal (Cyan; 9)
• Plum (Purple; 10)

The base color is first, and the pattern color is next if it is different.

The fish type is determined according to the shape and pattern of the fish:

Flopper	Stripey	Glitter	Blockfish	Betty	Clayfish	Kob	Sunstreak[n 1]	Snooper	Dasher	Brinely	Spotty

Some varieties of tropical fish don't follow the normal naming system; instead, they reference real-life fish species. In Java Edition, these unique fish are limited to the 22 common varieties. In Bedrock Edition, there are also 22 uniquely-named tropical fish, though they are not all the same as in Java Edition. These uniquely-named tropical fish aren't different from regular tropical fish in terms of design or behavior.

These varieties are:

Name	Type	Image
Anemone	Orange-Gray Stripey
Black Tang	Gray Flopper
Blue Tang‌[JE only]	Gray-Blue Flopper
Blue Dory‌[BE only]	Gray-Sky SunStreak
Butterflyfish‌[JE only]	White-Gray Clayfish
Butterfly Fish‌[BE only]	White-Gray Brinely
Cichlid	Blue-Gray Sunstreak‌[JE only] Blue-Gray SunStreak‌[BE only]
Clownfish	Orange-White Kob
Cotton Candy Betta	Pink-Light Blue Spotty‌[JE only] Rose-Sky Spotty‌[BE only]
Dottyback	Purple-Yellow Blockfish‌[JE only] Plum-Yellow Blockfish‌[BE only]
Emperor Red Snapper	White-Red Clayfish
Goatfish	White-Yellow Spotty
Moorish Idol	White-Gray Glitter
Ornate Butterflyfish‌[JE only] Ornate Butterfly‌[BE only]	White-Orange Clayfish
Parrotfish	Cyan-Pink Dasher‌[JE only] Teal-Rose Dasher‌[BE only]
Queen Angelfish‌[JE only] Queen Angel Fish‌[BE only]	Lime-Light Blue Brinely‌[JE only] Lime-Sky Brinely‌[BE only]
Red Cichlid	Red-White Betty
Red Lipped Blenny	Gray-Red Snooper
Red Snapper	Red-White Blockfish
Threadfin	White-Yellow Flopper
Tomato Clownfish‌[JE only]	Red-White Kob
Tomato Clown‌[BE only]	Red-White SunStreak
Triggerfish	Gray-White Sunstreak‌[JE only] Gray-White SunStreak‌[BE only]
Yellowtail Parrotfish‌[JE only] Yellowtail Parrot‌[BE only]	Cyan-Yellow Dasher‌[JE only] Teal-Yellow Dasher‌[BE only]
Yellow Tang	Yellow Flopper‌[JE only]
	Yellow Stripey ‌[BE only]

Sounds

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	Translation key
Tropical Fish	tropical_fish	aquatic axolotl_hunt_targets can_breathe_under_water not_scary_for_pufferfish sensitive_to_impaling	entity.minecraft.tropical_fish

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Family	Translation key
Tropical Fish	tropicalfish	111	aquatic fish tropicalfish	entity.tropicalfish.name

Entity data

Tropical fish have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Java Edition:

Color	Data value
White	0
Orange	1
Magenta	2
Light Blue	3
Yellow	4
Lime	5
Pink	6
Gray	7
Light Gray	8
Cyan	9
Purple	10
Blue	11
Brown	12
Green	13
Red	14
Black	15

The fish sizes and patterns are depicted in the following table, with white body color and dark-gray pattern color.

		second-least byte
		0	1	2	3	4	5
least byte	1	Flopper Glitter Betty Stripey Blockfish Clayfish Kob Snooper Brinely Sunstreak Dasher Spotty
	0

The 22 varieties of tropical fish most commonly found throughout the world have Variant tag values from the following table, which also lists what color/shape/patterns come from that value.

The variant number is the sum of the most significant byte × 2²⁴ + second most significant byte × 2¹⁶ + second least significant byte × 2⁸ + least significant byte.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		I am a Marine Biologist	Collect a fish in a bucket	Use a water bucket on any fish mob by right-clicking.	20	Bronze
		It Spreads	Kill a mob next to a catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this achievement.	10	Bronze

Achievements that apply to all mobs:

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30	Bronze
		Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.	20	Silver
		Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor stands and players also count for this achievement as they are technically mobs.	10	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.
	Tactical Fishing	Catch a Fish... without a Fishing Rod!	Use a water bucket on any fish mob.

Advancements that apply to all mobs:

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	A Throwaway Joke	Throw a Trident at something. Note: Throwing away your only weapon is not a good idea.	Hit a mob with a thrown trident.
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.
	Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement.
	Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
	Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.

History

Announcement

June 28, 2010							Notch mentioned that fish might be a feature of coral, if he were able to add coral: "... I do know that the corals will have tiny fish particles around them."
October 4, 2010							Fish were a passive mob that Notch showed interest in adding. In the promotional graphic for the Halloween Update, Notch indicated he would add fish. However, they were added only as an item; there was no code for a fish mob.
October 5, 2012							Fish were jokingly teased in the fake snapshot 12marc40awesome, along with coral and "fish blocks".
April 13, 2013							When Jon Kågström was asked in his AMA on Reddit, "What mob would you like to implement into the game?" He responded, "I would like to add birds, fish and tree animals to make it more alive. However this will take some time before it can be done."
July 31, 2013							During Notch's AMA on Reddit, when asked about what happened to his plans of adding fish as a mob, he responded, "Oh yeah, the fish!"
November 18, 2017							Two fish mobs, presumably early tropical fish, were shown off in a clip presented at MineCon Earth.
March 1, 2018							ThorsHand11 states on the official Minecraft Discord about the addition of "more than a handful" of tropical fish.

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

Bedrock Edition
1.4.0			beta 1.2.14.2				Added all 4 variants of fish mobs.
1.8.0			beta 1.8.0.8				Tropical fish are now slightly bigger.
1.13.0			beta 1.13.0.9				Tropical fish now drop experience when killed.
1.17.0			beta 1.16.230.52				Tropical fish are now attacked by axolotls.
1.17.10			beta 1.17.10.22				Tropical Fish no longer can be picked up with an empty bucket.
1.18.0			beta 1.18.0.21				Tropical fish now spawn only between Y=50 and Y=64, with the exception of lush caves in which they can spawn at any height.
1.18.0			beta 1.18.0.22				Tropical fish can now spawn in lukewarm ocean biomes.
1.19.10			Preview 1.19.10.23				The health of tropical fish has been changed to 3HP.

Legacy Console Edition

Minecraft Education

Issues

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

Gallery

Renders

• 
  Anemone
• 
  Black tang
• 
  Blue tang ‌^{[Java Edition only]}
• 
  Blue dory ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• 
  Butterflyfish ‌^{[Java Edition only]}
• 
  Butterfly fish ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• 
  Cichlid
• 
  Clownfish
• 
  Cotton candy betta
• 
  Dottyback‌^{[Java Edition only]} Dog Fish‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• 
  Emperor red snapper
• 
  Goatfish
• 
  Moorish idol
• 
  Ornate butterflyfish
• 
  Parrotfish
• 
  Queen angelfish
• 
  Red cichlid
• 
  Red lipped blenny
• 
  Red snapper
• 
  Threadfin
• 
  Tomato clownfish ‌^{[Java Edition only]}
• 
  Tomato clown ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• 
  Triggerfish
• 
  Yellowtail parrotfish
• 
  Yellow tang ‌^{[Java Edition only]}
• 
  Yellow tang ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Mojang screenshots

• 
  A school of fish in a coral reef
• 
  Five tropical fishes swimming through a body of water

Screenshots

• 
  An ocean with some fish visible
• 
  Cod and tropical fish, along with a turtle and squid
• 
  A screenshot of tropical fish up close
• 
  Some tropical fish jumping on land

Textures

• 
  Tropical fish A texture file
• 
  Tropical fish B texture file

• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 1
• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 2
• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 3
• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 4
• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 5
• 
  Tropical fish A pattern 6
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 1
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 2
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 3
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 4
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 5
• 
  Tropical fish B pattern 6

Other

• 
  The tropical fish spawn egg in Bedrock Edition beta 1.2.14.2
• 
  Unused clownfish texture
• 
  A recreated render of the unused clownfish mob

In other media

• 
  Tropical Fish as shown in the Update Aquatic artwork
• 
  Tropical Fish from Update Aquatic artwork
• 
  Tropical Fish in promotional artwork for the first Caves & Cliffs update
• 
  Tropical fish in official artwork for The Wild Update
• 
  Ornate butterflyfish art
• 
  Clownfish art
• 
  Yellowtail parrotfish art
• 
  Yellow tang art
• 
  Teal-lime kob art
• 
  Blue-light gray glitter art
• 
  White-orange spotty art
• 
  Artwork of a clownfish entity, predating Update Aquatic
• 
  A hoodie featuring tropical fish
• 
  A tropical fish as it appears in Minecraft Earth
• 
  A tropical fish as it appears in Minecraft Dungeons

See also

• Cod
• Salmon
• Pufferfish

References

External links

• "Taking Inventory: Tropical fish" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, June 27, 2025.