Silverfish in Minecraft: Infested Stone and Stopping Swarms
Silverfish hide in infested stone in strongholds and mountains, and one hurt silverfish can wake every block nearby. Spotting infested blocks, stopping it.
Silverfish are tiny gray bugs that hide inside stone. Break an infested block and one pops out; hurt it without killing it and every infested block nearby can break open at once. They only have 8 health and bite for half a heart, but a full swarm in a stronghold corridor can chew through a careless player.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health | 8 HP (4 hearts) |
| Damage | 1 HP (1.5 on Hard) |
| Found in | Infested blocks, stronghold portal room spawner, trial chambers |
| Drops | None |
| XP | 5 |
Where they hide
Infested blocks look exactly like stone, cobblestone, stone bricks (including mossy and cracked) and deepslate. They generate:
- Throughout strongholds, mixed into the stone brick walls.
- Underground in mountain and windswept hills biomes, scattered like an ore.
- In igloo basements.
- In the fake portal room of some woodland mansions.
Every stronghold End portal room also has a silverfish spawner on the stairs, right in front of the portal. Trial chambers can use silverfish as their small melee mob, too.
Spotting infested blocks
In survival there’s no visual tell. The clue is mining speed: with a pickaxe, an infested block breaks in about half the normal time, and by hand it breaks far faster than real stone. If a stone brick in a stronghold suddenly breaks in a fraction of a second, expect a silverfish.
Mining with Silk Touch doesn’t release the silverfish; you get the infested block back as normal stone. Silk Touch is a decent precaution in strongholds.
Why one becomes twenty
Two behaviors cause the trouble:
- Calling for help. When you damage a silverfish and it survives, it wakes up silverfish hiding in infested blocks within roughly a 21x11x21 area. They all break out and come for you.
- Re-hiding. An idle silverfish crawls into a nearby stone-type block and turns it into a new infested block. So a swarm you didn’t finish off spreads.
The fix for both is to kill silverfish in one hit. A stone sword or better does it on Normal, so swing at full charge rather than spamming clicks. Fighting in a corridor of anything other than stone helps too; they can’t hide in andesite, diorite, granite, smooth stone or mossy cobblestone.
Gravel and sand dropped onto them, or a bucket of lava down a hallway, also clear a swarm without triggering the call for help.
The Infested effect
Since 1.21, the Infested status effect (from a potion brewed with a stone block, or from ominous trial spawners) makes silverfish burst out of you. Each time an infested mob or player takes damage, there’s a 10% chance for one or two silverfish to appear. Splash it on enemies in PvP for a nasty surprise.
Edition notes
- Bedrock silverfish also attack snow golems.
- On Java, silverfish spawners in the portal room work at light level 11 or lower, so lighting the room fully stops the spawner.
All the cave and stronghold mobs are listed on the mobs hub.
Common questions
How can you tell if a block is infested?
It breaks in about half the usual time with a pickaxe, and far faster than real stone if you punch it. There's no visual difference in survival, so watch how fast blocks break in strongholds and mountains.
Do silverfish drop anything?
No items at all. They give 5 XP when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
How do you destroy a silverfish spawner?
Mine it with a pickaxe. Spawners drop only XP, so most players break the portal room spawner as soon as they reach it rather than fight the stream of silverfish.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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