What is coral?
Coral is a living block that comes in multiple colors and grows in coral reefs in warm ocean biomes! Warm oceans typically spawn near desert and badland biomes. It grows naturally on the ocean floor, and it comes in 5 colors; blue, pink, purple, red, and yellow. Coral can be found on any platform, Mac, PC, or Xbox, and in Java edition, Bedrock edition, education edition, and even pocket edition of Minecraft. It was first introduced to Java in 2017 in version 1.13, and Bedrock in version 1.4.0.
Coral can also appear grey if it’s dead coral, which happens when it’s placed on the ground with no connection to water. If you want to keep your coral alive make sure that some part of it is touching a water source around every 6th block. Dead coral can’t be brought back to life, so be sure to be careful about that! It can also be used as a decoration block, and has two forms; fans and blocks.
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Coral Fans vs Coral blocks:
Coral fans are a non-solid decorative block that grows on top of block coral whereas coral blocks are full blocks of coral. Each block and fan has a unique name and color; blue are tube corals, pink are brain corals, purple are bubble corals, red are fire corals and yellow are horn corals. Each has a slightly different pattern, which is shown in greyscale when the coral dies.
| Type | Tube (Blue) | Brain (Pink) | Bubble (Purple) | Fire (Red) | Horn (Yellow) |
| Block |  |  |  |  |  |
| Dead Block |  |  |  |  |  |
| Fan |  |  |  |  |  |
| Dead Fan |  |  |  |  |  |
How to collect coral?
Much like spawners, clay blocks, and bookshelves, coral needs to be collected with silk touch! Coral fans can be collected with any tool with silk touch, but the coral blocks can only be collected by a pickaxe with silk touch. Using an unenchanted tool to break these blocks will only destroy the block. Silk touch is an enchantment that can be added to tools with an enchantment table using experience points! It’s super helpful to have at least one tool with silk touch, especially a silk touch pickaxe of iron quality or higher. Or a shovel if you’re looking to collect snow!
Finding Coral: Warm Ocean Biome
Finding a warm ocean biome to start you search for coral can be hard depending on where you spawn, but once you’ve found one identifying it is pretty easy. Warm oceans are found near warm biomes, like I said above, so deserts and badlands. The ocean floor is completely made of sand. The coral will probably be visible from the surface, as well as the seagrass and sea pickles that spawn there. You will notice a lack of kelp and monuments, as they don’t spawn in warm oceans, but do keep a look out for ship wreaks and ocean ruins which do!
Finding Coral: Breathing Underwater
Finding coral requires going down to the floor of an ocean biome, which can be risky as you can start collecting harm if underwater too long. There are a few ways to get around this if you want to start spending time on the ocean floor. There is a potion of water breathing that players can make in a brewing station by first creating an awkwardness potion with nether wart and then using a pufferfish to turn it into a watering breathing potion. You can make three at a time and if you have some extra Redstone you can make a more powerful potion that lasts 8 minutes instead of the usual three.
If you’re not much of a potion maker you can also try a turtle shell helmet that gives you an extra 10 seconds before your air starts running out. Or the respiration enchantment which can be applied to helmets and gives you can extra 15 seconds of air per enchantment level. And if you’re also looking to get around that pesky underwater mining penalty you can add the aqua affinity enchantment to your helmet, which gets ride of the penalty entirely.
| Item or Enchantment | Potion of Water Breathing | Turtle Shell Helmet | Respiration Enchantment | Aqua Affinity Enchantment |
| Image |  |  |  | |
| Effect | 3 or 8 minutes of underwater breathing | 10 extra seconds of underwater breathing | 15 extra seconds of underwater breathing per enchantment level | Removes underwater mining penalty |
(Picture or table of the different items)
If you’re looking for a more creative solution you can place a door or a magma block on the ocean floor, which both create air around them, and use those to reset your air when you start running out!
If you’re having trouble finding coral reefs and playing in Java, you can also grow coral in warm oceans by placing bone meal on sand, dirt, coarse dirt, gravel or clay. Unfortunately, this feature is not in bedrock yet, but there’s always a chance it will be added soon!
Other Uses for Coral
Wondering what all the fuss is about coral? Other than being a beautiful block to build with, it has plenty of uses in game. For starters coral blocks can be used as a sea pickle farm. By placing sea pickles on top of coral blocks and using bone meal, sea pickles will start to grow on all the coral around it. Coral can also be used in making music! All coral, including dead coral, makes a bass drum sound under a note block!
Starting to fill your inventory with dead coral from less than successful building attempts? No sweat! Dead coral can look great with building as well! It can add a dark or gothic mode to your walls or fit right in mixed with gravel for a sidewalk!
