Bucket of Tropical Fish is a water-filled bucket that holds one captured tropical fish in Minecraft. You get it by using a Water Bucket on any tropical fish swimming in warm oceans, lukewarm oceans, lush caves, or mangrove swamps; the right-click scoops the fish into the bucket. Emptying the bucket places a water source block and releases the exact same tropical fish, keeping its original size, pattern, base color, and pattern color, so this is the reliable way to relocate a specific variety to a build, aquarium, or display tank without losing it to despawning. The main gameplay use is axolotls: a Bucket of Tropical Fish is the only food that breeds them, and an axolotl will follow a player holding the bucket, which makes it the standard tool for moving and farming axolotls. The item was added in Java Edition 1.13 and Bedrock Edition 1.4.0 during the Update Aquatic, and it exists in both editions. The bucket does not stack — each one occupies a full inventory slot — so transporting many fish means carrying many buckets. Because the captured fish never despawns while in the bucket, players also use it to preserve rare tropical fish patterns for decorative aquariums.