How to get a bucket of tropical fish in Minecraft

In Minecraft, tropical fish are common, passive mobs that are found in oceans. There are currently 2,700 naturally occurring variants. While players might assume that tropical fish are only there to help the ocean environment and to provide as a food resource, they should reassess that thought.

While tropical fish are a viable food source and do help out the ocean environment, they can also be very useful in another way - a bucket of tropical fish. They have a couple of usages, but first, players must know how to obtain a bucket of tropical fish. While their usability runs deep, players must know how to obtain a bucket.

Down below is everything players need to know about obtaining a bucket of tropical fish in Minecraft!

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Bucket of Tropical Fish in Minecraft

Gathering your first resource

A bucket of tropical fish only has two needed resources - a bucket and fish. Buckets are simple to make, only needing 3 iron ingots. On the crafting bench, players need to place the ingots in a "v" formation.

Once the bucket has been created, the real adventure begins!

Finding Tropical Fish

In Minecraft Java Edition, tropical fish spawn in groups of 8 at 24 (cylindrical) to 64 (spherical) blocks away from the player, with random patterns, in lukewarm or warm oceans.

In Minecraft Bedrock Edition, fish spawn underwater at 12-32 blocks away from the player. They spawn only in warm ocean biomes, in groups of 3-5 for the same preset pattern, and in groups of 1-3 for a random pattern. In addition, in this version, tropical fish only spawn on the surface.

For Minecraft players trying to find the warm ocean biome, it can be somewhat tricky. The warm ocean variant has a light teal water color at the surface. Like it's lukewarm counterpart, its floor is made of sand and is heavily populated with seagrass.

The major difference is that warm oceans feature large coral reef systems and sea pickles, although kelp will not naturally generate here.

Obtaining a Bucket of Tropical Fish, and how to use it

Once Minecraft players have found the warm ocean biome, it is best to continuously swim around until they come across a school of fish. Once the player has found a tropical fish of their liking, they can simply right click on it with the bucket.

The tropical fish will appear as clownfish while in the bucket, but do not fret - it will remain the same tropical fish you picked up.

Players are then able to transport it back to their homes if they wish. They can place it in water and the fish will not be despawned. Coupled with that, players are even able to put a nametag on said fish!

The other use for a bucket of tropical fish is to feed to axolotls for breeding!