Tropical Fish

Natural generation

Tropical fish spawn underwater in warm, lukewarm, and deep-lukewarm oceans, mangrove swamps, and the aquifers of lush caves. In the open ocean they appear in groups of eight around the surface band from Y 50 to 63; lush-cave aquifers can use any height.

• Warm OceanBiome
• Lukewarm OceanBiome
• Deep Lukewarm OceanBiome
• Mangrove SwampBiome
• Lush CavesBiome

Drops

A fish killed by a player or a tamed wolf drops one tropical fish item and gives 1–3 experience. The entity loot table has a separate 5% chance to add bone meal; using a bucket is a capture action instead of a death drop.

• Tropical FishItem
• Bone MealItem
• Bucket of Tropical FishItem

Sounds

The fish uses separate ambient, hurt, death, and flop events. The flop event is heard when a fish is out of water and the other events belong to its aquatic entity family.

Behavior

Fish move in schools of up to seven and can swim against the water flow. An empty bucket captures one fish together with its pattern and colours; emptying the bucket places the fish back in water and prevents natural despawning. Tropical fish cannot be bred and quickly suffocate on land.

• BucketItem
• Bucket of Tropical FishItem
• WaterBlock

Data values

The entity uses `minecraft:tropical_fish`. Its packed variant stores a pattern, a base colour, and a pattern colour. There are 22 common preset patterns; naturally generated Java fish use a preset most of the time and a fully random combination for the remaining spawns, producing 3,072 naturally occurring combinations.

Data: Data values

Identifier	minecraft:tropical_fish
Version	Minecraft 26.2
Entity ID	Tropical Fishtropical_fish
Common presets	22
Natural combinations	3,072
Variant fields	Pattern, base colour, pattern colour
Storage	Packed Variant entity value and bucket components

• Bucket of Tropical FishItem
• Tropical Fish Spawn EggItem

Gallery

See also

• Mob catalogue
• Minecraft Wiki overview
• Warm OceanBiome
• Lukewarm OceanBiome
• Deep Lukewarm OceanBiome
• Mangrove SwampBiome
• Lush CavesBiome
• BucketItem
• Tropical FishItem
• Bucket of Tropical FishItem
• Bone MealItem
• AxolotlMob

References

The entity implementation owns packed variant data and bucket serialization. The registry and loot table define the public identity and death drops, while biome selection remains in generated data.

Data: References

Local source	Tropical Fishtropical_fish
Entity implementation	net/minecraft/world/entity/animal/fish/TropicalFish.java
Entity registration	net/minecraft/world/entity/EntityTypes.java
Entity loot table	data/minecraft/loot_table/entities/tropical_fish.json
Bucket components	minecraft:tropical_fish_pattern, minecraft:tropical_fish_base_color, minecraft:tropical_fish_pattern_color

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