Fish farming explained

Fish are Enthalpy's main way of getting materials. You breed ordinary fish into new species, and each species gives something back: a metal, a gem, a block of stone, oil. This page is the overview. Each part links to the page that goes into depth.

Three blocks, three jobs#

• The Spawning Basin is the lab. It holds one pair of fish and, with a catalyst, mutates them into a new species. It never yields resources.
• The Ecotone is the farm. Four rows of paired fish breed on a timer, and the resource fish among them yield materials. Crops grow beside them and the two feed each other.
• The Tank Hatch is the display. It turns a box of glass into an aquarium that holds your finished fish. It needs no power and does nothing else.

All three are built around glass, which becomes the tank, and all three show the fish swimming inside.

From vanilla fish to resources#

The loop has four steps, and you repeat it for each species you want.

1. Catch. Fish for a pair of Raw Cod, Raw Salmon, Pufferfish or Tropical Fish.
2. Mutate. Put the pair in a Spawning Basin with fish food and the right catalyst. For example, two cod and an Iron Nugget now and then give a Ferric Cod. You need two of the new fish, so mutate twice. Breeding and mutation covers the odds.
3. Farm. Put the pair in a row of an Ecotone. Each time they breed, they either make another fish or yield a resource. Ferric Cod gives iron nuggets 66% of the time they do not copy themselves.
4. Collect. The resource lands in the row's resource output, ready for a pipe.

Rarer fish are bred from earlier ones: Gilded Koi from a Ferric Cod and a Cupric Salmon, Diamond Ray from a Gilded Koi and an Amethyst Angler, and on up to the netherite and modded metals. The breeding explorer lays out the whole line to any fish, and Species lists every one with its yield.

What fish are good for#

Resources#

The main use. A resource fish yields its material while it breeds in an Ecotone, and also when you grind it. Common fish give metals, redstone and coal; the rare ones give diamonds, emeralds and netherite. Some give stone in bulk (Stone fish), and two give fluids when soaked (Soaked fish).

Fish Meal#

The Triturator grinds a fish into Fish Meal. It feeds fish in the Spawning Basin and the Ecotone, where it boosts resource yields, and it works as bone meal on crops.

Fish oil#

The Vortex Separator presses any raw fish into fish oil, a fuel feedstock. Oily fish give more, and the Candlefish gives the most.

Food#

Every bred fish cooks into a cooked fish, and the themed ones grant a short effect when eaten.

Ammunition#

The Haddock Howitzer fires fish from your off hand or a Tackle Satchel. Some fish add an effect of their own: the Candlefish sets targets alight and the Volt Puffer poisons them.

The Fish products page covers Fish Meal, oil and cooking in full.

Two things to know early#

• Resource fish copy themselves only sometimes. That is how a farm grows, and it is deliberate. See why.
• About 1% of bred fish are Prized. They shimmer and boost yields. See Prized fish.