What to Do With Pufferfish in Minecraft (2023)

You’ll encounter and pick up plenty of valuable items throughout Minecraft adventures. Sometimes you’ll find a new weapon; other times, you’ll pick up blocks or crafting materials. While pufferfish aren’t always the most useful out there, they do have some surprising benefits once you learn their full capabilities. If you’d like to learn more, continue reading to discover a few things you can do with pufferfish in Minecraft.

Related: How to Build an End Portal in Minecraft (2023)

What to Do With Pufferfish in Minecraft

Pufferfish are small fish that spawn in warm and lukewarm ocean biomes. You can pick them up with a bucket of water, allowing you to relocate them elsewhere. You can also get the pufferfish item, but eating this gives you temporary poison, hunger, and nausea effects. They don’t cook in furnaces either, making them an ineffective food source.

What are they used for, then? Plenty of things, surprisingly! Not only is the pufferfish item helpful, but even the mob itself is handy in certain situations.

Making a Potion of Water Breathing

Pufferfish also act as a helpful potion ingredient once you get your hands on a brewing stand, water bottles, Nether Wart and Blaze Powder. Use Blaze Powder, a water bottle, and Nether Wart inside your brewing stand to create an Awkward Potion before merging it with your pufferfish. By doing this, you’ll get a basic Potion of Water Breathing, giving you three minutes to breathe underwater without any problems!

Guarding Your Base

If you attempt to approach a pufferfish, it’ll inflate, inflicting damage and poison effects on your character. While this isn’t great for you, there is some good news: they also damage animals, monsters, and other players. Imagine creating a moat around your house with pufferfish inside, waiting for an unsuspecting visitor to fall in and take damage. It’s creative and fun, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

Trading With Villagers

One of the most helpful perks of stockpiling pufferfish is trading with villagers! In particular, a master-level fisherman villager will give you one emerald for every few pufferfish you provide. You can use these emeralds to trade with other villagers, too, making it a great way to get these fish off your hands if you can stockpile a bunch.

Related: All Minecraft Villagers and their Trades Listed

Defeating for Bones

Defeating pufferfish in combat also has a small chance of netting you some rewards. While you’ll usually just get the pufferfish item, you can also get bone meal if you’re on Java Edition and bones if you’re on Bedrock. You can also get some experience points to go toward enchanting.

Minecraft is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and mobile devices through the official website. For more information about the game, check out How to Make Mud in Minecraft.