This Minecraft tutorial explains all about silverfish with screenshots and step-by-step instructions. Let's learn about silverfish in Minecraft.
Supported Platforms
Silverfish are available in the following versions of Minecraft:
| Yes | |
| Yes (0.9.0) | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes | |
| Yes |
* The version that it was added or removed, if applicable.
NOTE: Pocket Edition (PE), Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Windows 10 Edition are now called Bedrock Edition. We will continue to show them individually for version history.
Background
The following is a picture of what a silverfish looks like in Minecraft:
| Hostile Mob |
| 8 health points |
| Near the End portal |
| None |
| Runs towards you and tries to hit you |
| None |
| 5 experience points |
Hostility Level (Hostile)
A silverfish is a hostile mob. The term mob is short for mobile and is used to refer to all living, moving creatures in the game such as chickens, creepers, and silverfish. Because a silverfish is a hostile mob, it will attack you in Survival mode but not Creative mode.
Health Points
In Minecraft, a silverfish has 4 hearts
Where to Find Silverfish
In Minecraft, you can find silverfish near the End Portal.
If you haven't been to the End Portal, you can not build an End Portal. Instead, you need to find the End Portal in the game.
Silverfish are created from a silverfish spawner near the End Portal.
If you are having trouble finding a silverfish, you can also summon a silverfish using a cheat or you can use a spawn egg.
Weapon
A silverfish does not carry a weapon.
Attack Method
In Minecraft, a silverfish will move towards you and try to hit you when it attacks.
Drops
When you kill a silverfish in Minecraft, it will not drop anything. It is one of the few mobs that when killed, does not drop any items.
Experience Points
As you play the game, you will gain experience. The most common way to gain experience is by killing mobs. When a mob is killed you will see tiny green and yellow balls appear and move towards you.
These orbs represent experience points. When you kill a silverfish, you will gain 5 experience points.
Spawn Egg for Silverfish
You can spawn a silverfish using the following spawn egg:
Command Examples
Here are some game command examples for a silverfish in Minecraft:
NBT Tags for Silverfish (Java Edition)
Here are the NBT tags (formerly called data tags) that you can use in game commands for a silverfish in Java Edition:
Spawn Events for Silverfish (Bedrock/Education)
Here are the spawn events that you can use in game commands for a silverfish in Bedrock Edition and Education Edition:
Other Mobs
Here are some of the other mobs in Minecraft:
For Minecraft players, fishing can be either a hobby to see what comes from the waters or a way of survival, but there is one fish nobody wants to find: silverfish.
Silverfish, a hostile mob that lives in stone blocks, is a type of fish not found by fishing but by mining in Minecraft.
Minecraft silverfish, when idle, will make their homes in nearby stone in mountains, strongholds, igloo basements, and woodland mansions. They are known to infest stones, cobblestones, stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, cracked stone bricks, and chiseled stone bricks.
The good news is that silverfish cannot infect mossy cobblestone, slabs, stairs, andesite, diorite, granite, or smooth stone.
When a block in Minecraft is broken, in which a silverfish can attack, they will attack the player for damaging or destroying their home.
Minecraft’s silverfish spawn from broken and infested blocks, but they are most commonly found in the blocks in end portal rooms in strongholds. They can also only spawn at light levels of 11 or lower.
Silverfish will not only attack players, but they will also attack iron and snow golems, which are normally used as protection against mobs. Golems will not offer much protection against silverfish.
How to kill silverfish in Minecraft
When a silverfish is attacked in Minecraft by being hit by a player, it will call upon other silverfish to aid in the attack if it does not die within the first hit. A way to not have to deal with an entire mob is to either kill the fish in one hit or by using a sword or pickaxe with the Bane of Arthropods enchantment on it.
The Bane of Arthropods enchantment is put onto a sword or pickaxe in Minecraft and can increase the damage done to arthropods. They include bees, cave spiders, regular spiders, endermites, and silverfish.
Silverfish, unlike other mobs, can see through walls until the player is reached. When a player inflicts damage, the silverfish will call others within a 21x11x21 block radius. This will cause others to break out of their infected blocks and help the first silverfish attack the player.
The interesting thing about silverfish in Minecraft is that they cannot spawn within a five-block radius of players.
As mentioned earlier, the best way to defeat a silverfish is to be able to attack it with a Bane of Arthropods enchanted sword or pickaxe and destroy it within one hit. While it sounds almost impossible, it is easy enough. Be sure to have high-level weapons, armor, and a shield with you when mining.
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Edited by Shaheen Banu
Silverfish are hostile mobs that hide in infested blocks found in strongholds located in Extreme Hills or Extreme Hills Edge biomes. They are relatively small, have a bug-like figure with silver skin with tiny black eyes. Provoking a Silverfish can attract others in the same area. Since they can see through walls, they find their way to the player and start inflicting damage. It's better to avoid conflict with them because they can generate a massive swarm enough to overwhelm any player. On the other hand, this property can also be used to create an infinite XP farm.
Silverfish also drop no reward for killing them aside from 5 experiences. Silverfish was the basis for Endermite's and Redstone Bug's design.
| Hostility Level | Hostile Mob |
| Health Points | 8 health points |
| Where to Find | Near the End portal |
| Weapon | None |
| Attack Strength | Easy and Normal: 1; Hard: 1.5 |
| Attack Method | Runs towards you and tries to hit you |
| Drops | None |
| Experience Points | 5 experience points |
Silverfish can spawn from infested blocks, which generate in strongholds, igloos with basements, woodland mansion fake portal rooms, and mountain biomes upon being broken. However, they do not spawn Silverfish do not appear if the block is broken with Silk Touch. When the block is broken, Silverfish will pop out and attack. Destroying one of these blocks via creepers or TNT will kill the silverfish instantly before it has time to emerge. In regular gameplay, silverfish blocks occur rarely.
They will spawn only at light level 11 or less while spawning from monster spawners. They will also not spawn within a 5-block radius of any player. Naturally, silverfish spawners are created in strongholds in end portal rooms.
Silverfish can "call" other silverfish in the area upon being hit. These silverfish can see through walls and find their way to the players. When idle, silverfish will enter a nearby stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, cracked stone bricks, or chiseled stone bricks block, transforming it into the respective infested block if /gamerule mob griefing is set to true. They cannot infest mossy cobblestone, slab, and stairs variants of these blocks.
When they suffer poison damage or damage inflicted by the player and survive, they may cause other silverfish within a 21×11×21 area to break out of their monster eggs. The player can, therefore, prevent other silverfish from appearing by killing them in one shot. They take more damage from tools with the Bane of Arthropods enchantment. They are the fifth smallest mobs in Minecraft.
Silverfish can cause damage to a player. This occurs when a silverfish is touching a player and a change of the Y-coordinate (elevation) of either a player or silverfish occurs. This can easily kill a player, in a confined space, since receiving damage causes a player to perform a short "hop," which counts as a Y-cord change. This allows the silverfish to damage a player again as a player is coming back down from the initial "damage hop". Successive hits by silverfish will cause player’s health to decrease drastically. If a silverfish is standing on soul sand, it will slowly take suffocation damage and die.
It is advised to avoid conflicts with silverfish altogether, as they will simply generate a massive swarm that can easily overwhelm any player. If a player does choose to challenge silverfish or ends up having an encounter, it is advised that they wear armor, as silverfish can quickly deal massive amounts of damage as the swarm grows.
It is advisable to use melee weapons as they are amongst the smaller naturally spawning mobs. If a player is experienced with a bow, then using ranged combat may reduce the size of a swarm. A simple tactic to combat a swarm of silverfish is to simply build a two-block high pillar and attack from there as silverfish do not have any range and only deal damage via contact. Do not use splash potions as nearby silverfish will be provoked, causing greater difficulty with combating silverfish.
High-level enchantments equipped on a sword can also be very efficient, like a diamond sword with Sweeping Edge complemented by a high level of Bane of Arthropods can take out an entire swarm of silverfish in one swipe.
In Bedrock Edition, letting a silverfish enter regular stone bricks turns them into infested stone instead of infested stone bricks.
Both Silverfish and Endermites, which they are very similar to, suffocate in Soul Sand.
Silverfish and Cave Spiders are the only mobs whose spawning is completely unaffected by the command /gamerule doMobSpawning false. Because they only spawn from spawners and special blocks, they are not affected by the command.
Q. Are Silverfish a sign of a stronghold?
No. Not always. There can silverfish blocks that spawn in extreme hills biomes. It does not really mean that you're near a stronghold.
Q. Are silverfish useful in Minecraft?
They aren’t very useful; however, you can use them as a way of bottling up experience, but there are much faster ways of getting exp.
Q. How do you get rid of silverfish in Minecraft?
Destroying one of these blocks via creepers or TNT will kill the silverfish instantly before it has time to emerge. Try killing them in a single shot so they do not have the chance to summon silverfish from nearby.