Talk:Ice

Fire?
Can you light ice on fire? I know this sounds stupid, but if you can, it should be added, and if not, then is it like the glass thing with Flint and Steel where it still takes up a use? JesusChrist666 22:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't test to confirm but I'm sure I've tried it before and you can't. I don't know if it still takes up a use.  A NNOYING  23:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It does take up a use. Ary31415 14:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

As of 1.9.5 (can't check previous versions), you can melt ice in the nether, though it is somewhat unpredictable. The fastest way I have found so far is to place the ice above lava with a 1 block space to allow embers to spawn from the lava.


 * The embers do nothing.They are just for show.XD.166.127.1.224 13:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)psycodragons

Ice in the Nether
There seems to be a bit of confusion over what happens when ice breaks/melts in the Nether. Can someone confirm whether this works or not? --BransonKP 09:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I just put ice next to lava and it melted. It even formed water and because it was next to lava that created obsidian. Ivo 18:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Spawning Ice
This is my first time building exclusively in an ice biome. Can I pick anyone's brain about...

1. How long does melted/broken ice take to refreeze? Only during blizzards? Is it longer If it is surrounded only by ice blocks (no snow) or only snow blocks (no ice)?

2. Does ice spawn next to "snow blocks" or "snow covered block x"

3. Does "snow covered block x" have to be dirt/sand? (My biome has no naturally occurring ice on snow covered gravel shores. Two solid stone tiles (One full block) covered in snow has also failed to spawn ice in the adjacent water blocks over 3 or more blizzards)

I can contribute a few small things to the page:

1. I've never seen ice initially spawn in more than one layer

2. I have seen ice initially spawn under rocky outcrops, even ones that form surface caves (but not in true caves).

Morlec 06:10, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

This needs updating. Ice freeze water now. Not sure of the rate. Also i found something interesting. If u have a pillar of water (one source block) and below the pillar of water is ice, the pillar will freeze the source block into ice, just the source block. --Teoh 01:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

as far as i can tell... all water blocks turn into ice in snow biomes.. even miles away from ice and snow blocks. i have had water turn into ice in my house--Silverfox6000 06:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Put a light source near your water (best thing is to put a glowstone block/jack-o-lantern under the water). – ultradude25 ( T at 08:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, he's saying to light up the water so it doesn't freeze --R ocĸetor talk  09:18, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

i did some testing and it seems water becomes ice if it has a view of the sky. i just tried making ice in a cave at the bottom and it didn't work. but when i made a hole to the surface it became ice eventually. can someone confrim this and add it to trivia or something?--Silverfox6000 01:08, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am currently building an ice castle in a freezing biome and have observed/can confirm the following behaviors:
 * Ice only (re)freezes if the only blocks above it are air/sky
 * Ice appears to freeze slightly faster at while snowing (rain) or at night. This is probably due to the lower light level, but that is just a guess.
 * Ice appears to fleeze slightly faster if there is another block next to it. I'm using dirt for "scaffolding", and a single block next to a source water block will cause the water to freeze in about half the time as just leaving teh source water alone.  Having another ice block next to the water works just as well as the dirt.
 * Ice will refreeze almost as fast as a torch can melt it (block of dirt with a torch on it sitting on the ice, torch on the side of the dirt). The torch appears to be "winning", melting the ice slightly faster than it can refreeze, but I didn't test that for more than a couple minutes. More testing is needed to confirm the behavior of older versions still holds true.
 * You don't need to have anything under the source water for it to freeze. This means you can construct roofs/doorways without having to fill things in. but it can take a while to freeze if there is nothing but water next to individual blocks of source water.
 * Ice with air under it leaves no water when broken.
 * You cannot place doors or torches (haven't tried any other objects, yet) directly on ice, but by adding stone or dirt you can. (My castle is going to look odd with stone stairs and bottom "supports" for the doors. ;)
 * Spiders can climb ice walls.
 * I will update this if I discover any thing else. I was planning to get some glowstone at some point, to light the castle.  When I get to that I will be able to confirm whether it will cause nearby ice to melt. -- Krenshala 21:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

spawning
can monsters spawn on ice?--Lazeman 07:14, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

They can't, ice is a transparent block, they also can't spawn on glass or slabs. C ali nou - talk × contribs » 07:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I never checked in older versions, but in final v1.2.3 mobs can definitely spawn on ice. I've had creepers, zombies and skeletons all spawn in my ice castle, some inside, some on the second floor (see my post above for other observations). -- Krenshala 21:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Tool
Why is the tool to break ice quicker a pickaxe? It shouldn't be a stone type block. It should be a glass type block in which case the tool should be a sword. Ary31415 14:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Because People actually use pickaxes to break ice in real life.

Ice and Snow
Article top: Any block of water exposed to snow will eventually freeze into ice Trivia: Water does not freeze into ice from the presence of nearby snow blocks Now what? --Knopper 07:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I get it, snow vs. snow blocks. So there is no way to make ice grow into warmer biomes, or into underground (other than uncovering til daylight in cold biomes?)
 * Water freezes to ice only when it is in the tundra or taiga biomes and has direct vertical view of the sky. Think of it like the Winter Mode, where the snow falling on the water froze it. So, yes. Ice is only present in the arctic biomes.  Verhalthur (talk)(contribs) 13:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Clearly we need to have Jeb add ice (block) tongs as a tool! :-) —KPReid 13:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be fun (igloo time!), but it might cause water-in-the-Nether problems. Verhalthur (talk)(contribs) 14:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The uber-solution would be to have any water finite, but keep rain in check so oceans are stable. Rainwater sipping through rocks, so waterfalls are created naturally. Then it wouldn't bother if someone gets a few blocks into the nether. Or how about a fridge device? Or an icemachine? That needs water on the top. So you can create ice but not in nether? --Knopper 19:09, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Ice screwed up my world.
When the weather update first came, it snowed in my favorite world. Since then it's been covered with snow and all the water has been frozen. I tried a lot of things to reverse this but the most success I've had was with a map editor. However, I successfully got rid of the snow and ice, but as soon as I log into my world, the ice just randomly starts generating again. Is there ANY way to stop this! My world used to look so pretty now it looks like crap! It is so terrible. --Ofgs2 10:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Use a map editor to move it out of a snow biome, or spam glowstone everywhere. – ultradude25 ( T at 10:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

okay ill try that, thanks man --Ofgs2 12:33, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

A question
In Creative Mode in Beta 1.8, can this still be mined in the Nether to get water in the Nether? Because in Creative you can place ice blocks. TorchicBlaziken 21:43, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Ice into water?
In Creative Mode I have tried using ice blocks to place water (no real reason). However, they don't seem to turn into water like they should. They have solid blocks beneath them but they just shatter like glass. I've only tried it in the desert and in the nether, is ice's ability to turn to water canceled in these two places? Or is it just a 1.8 issue? Or is it specific to 1.8 Creative Mode?


 * I think ice doesn't turn into water when you break it in creative mode. This is because the breaking is different in creative mode (you can for example break bedrock). I don't know for sure, but this is what I believe. Ivo 18:57, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah it's only in creative mode (just how when you break blocks like dirt and stuff in creative mode they don't drop as items) --HexZyle 03:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Speaking of Ice/Water, I was fooling around with lava and ice. I was puzzled, because even though the lava was on the ice, it didn`t melt. After removing the lava I hit the ice in frustration. The ice then shattered and became water. Is this a bug, slow block update, or do you have to hit ice before it melts? HELP!!!166.127.1.224 13:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)psycodragons

Time
Does anyone know exactly how long it takes for ice to generate (at least the maximum time)? I want to put infinite water springs to a clock so that I can make a regenerating ice wall or floor. Plus, it might be helpful to have on the article. Father Toast  14:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be, but since we don't have anyone that has looked at the code for how fast water, lava and grass spreads and when trees do their growth check, we will probably never know --HexZyle 03:05, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It appears to be checked at the same rate as leaf decay. It might be closer to the check time for tree growth, however, it seems faster than trees to me. -- Krenshala 21:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I can provide a code answer, if someone wants to update the main article. For every tick, there is a 1/16 chance that ice will be checked at all on a given chunk; if it is checked, one random block in that chunk will be chosen and looked at.  If that block is water and should be ice, it becomes ice.

This means there is no maximum wait time for an individual block of ice: if you have just one water block in a 16x16 chunk and wait around, you have a 1 in 4096 chance each tick of seeing that water become ice. On the flip side, if you fill an entire chunk with water, you can be reasonably certain that half of it will be ice in under 2 minutes. VrtraTheory 17:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Stone
I poured some lava down on ice today and i noticed that under the lava was stone. Ice --> Stone? can someone confirm this?--173.181.83.36 05:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ice melts under the heat of the lava, turns into water, waterflow and lavaflow combine = cobblestone. --[[Use
 * HexZyle|HexZyle]] 05:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Due to the conditions, wouldn't it create stone rather than cobblestone?--BTH 06:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, lava flowing down into water creates stone. Same thing will happen if you pour the lava down on water. Father  Toast  15:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Ice in 1.0 needs to spread like grass on dirt.
I was building a stair case out of ice leading to my slime farm and I was having trouble making water freeze. I've made structures out of ice in previous versions (around beta 1.7) but now it seems like ice needs to be directly adjacent to a water block and on the same y layer in order to freeze. I was able to fix this by using a piston to push an ice block down 1 block and water stated to freeze right away. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not. I'd like to hear some people's opinion and confirmations of this issue before it is added to the actual page.

Sprint-Jumping Nerfed in 1.0?
I suspect it's due to Notch slowing down the jump rate when holding down spacebar. I can't achieve sprint-jump travel at anything near the pre-1.0 speeds in either single- or multi-player. Can anyone confirm? --Sandwich 23:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ice Bug in 1.2.5
When an ice block is placed next to a lava block the lava block becomes transparent when viewed through the ice block. This only happens when the ice block is up against the side of the lava block

Ice Won't Stay Melted Anymore - as of 1.2.5
In previous builds, I was able to exploit the known qualities of light to melt ice in a fixed pattern (and keep it melted), allowing me to create channels in ice. The ice has since moved away from its original biome, but has cropped up elsewhere...and the techniques I used before to create channels are not working. It seems ice has become far more resistant to melting, and also more prone to refreezing (ice broken at light levels 10 and 11 does not stay melted, even though it did before; what's more, ice at light level 12 does not seem to melt at all anymore). Further, the current flickering property of artificial light allows ice to melt, then return. I suggest that the current information on light melting ice is incorrect, and therefore useless. Either that, or the information we have on how lighting works is woefully incomplete. —MarsJenkar 22:14, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Glowstone
Above it implies that glowstone will melt ice... it won't, right? Felinoel 18:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

OK heres why it melts ice:

It produces light just like torches and lamps and thats what nelts the ice,not the glowstone it self

so don't ask about lamps/torches melting ice either because they follow the same rules

look up lighting on the wiki to understand it better

hoped I helped! Russell4 03:10, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

melting ice
when ice is melted it will return to water until freezing on IA's mark. pleas edit if you have info on melting ice.

Verify
"Making a 2-block high hallway with an ice floor, sprint-jumping down it causes the fastest possible speed in the game." Can this speed be increased by using potions? Is it faster than flying in creative mode? 128.84.124.86 00:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Light Data Inaccurate
[EDIT] Nevermind. Orthotope clarified my misunderstanding of Minecraft's lighting mechanics. My original post preserved below.

"Ice will also melt into water if the light level immediately next to it on any side is sufficiently high (greater than 11), from light sources other than sunlight. Conversely, a water block in a snowy biome will eventually freeze into ice if exposed to the sky from directly above, and the light level immediately adjacent to the water block on all sides is sufficiently low (less than 13). This can happen at any time of day, and in any weather condition. If the highest adjacent light level is 12, an ice block will alternately melt and re-freeze when it receives a block tick."

I haven't played with ice much before now, so it's difficult for me to say if this data was ever accurate, but, in 1.4.4, I have water freezing into ice when it's diagonally adjacent to a torch, and I've tested this repeatedly. Although the wiki, here, says that ice will freeze if exposed to sky and the light level on ~all~ sides is sufficiently low, my theory is that, as with grass's growth, the water checks one of its sides every-so-many-ticks; if that side isn't lit sufficiently (less than 12), it will freeze. If it is lit sufficiently, it'll melt... Something like that.

I think that, to stay unfrozen indefinitely, a block of water needs to be lit >=12 on all sides, which is why, in my game, a block of water won't freeze if it's between two torches. I'm going to do some more experimenting, but let me know your thoughts; maybe I'm mistaken and there's some already-documented reason why water is freezing on the immediate diagonal of my torches.

[EDIT 1] I just tested it for another few minutes, and ice placed on the immediate diagonal of a torch will indeed randomly MELT as well as refreeze. Unless I misunderstand Light, the blocks directly adjacent to a torch should be at 13, so the water should never freeze or refreeze.

Adding credence to my theory that water checks one of its sides at a time to decide whether it should melt or freeze, water seems to freeze very quickly when there are no light sources around it compared to when there's a torch on the diagonal; that is, with the torch on the diagonal, it would hypothetically have a 50% chance to freeze if it were to check one the four adjacent blocks and decide based on that. On the other hand, with no light-sources, it would have a 100% chance to freeze when it makes its check.

If I misunderstand how light works, please let me know, even if none of us can immediately provide a completely concrete theory about how ice melting and freezing works. If I'm right in thinking that, based on the current information, water should not freeze on the diagonal of a torch, the article should be edited to not contain misinformation.

Vencabot teppoo 02:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC)David


 * As far as I can tell, ice's behavior is the same in 1.4 as it was in 1.3 . I'm guessing you have a setup similar to File:Torch and ice 1.3.png; note that the torch is on the layer above the water/ice. The air blocks horizontally adjacent to the torch have a light level of 13, so the water below them will not freeze. Air blocks diagonally adjacent to the torch (on the same layer) have a light level of 12, so water or ice below them can either freeze or melt. If the torch was on the same layer as the water (say, with glass blocks protecting it from being washed away), the melting radius would increase by 1, and blocks diagonally adjacent would never freeze. -- Orthotope 07:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for your prompt response, Orthotope. This was my first post here on the wiki, although I've used it for a very long time. Your clarification makes perfect sense, and so the problem really was that I didn't understand the light mechanics: I was thinking of light levels as applying to the 'floor' directly below a light-source, since that's where you actually ~see~ the effect of the light, but I guess that it's actually certain 'blocks' that are lit or dark, and the visible effect on the surfaces of those blocks are just that. So, like you said, if I place a torch on level ground and a block of water one north and one east of the GROUND, the light level of the GROUND directly to the east and directly to the north are both... twelve, which results in the water repeatedly freezing and melting.

Thanks again for your clarification! Vencabot teppoo 19:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

speed
in 1.7.2 it seems that ice+water makes only items slide faster while monsters/players are at the same speed

1.8+ light levels for melting ice
Can anyone verify the light level at which ice melts? For me (tested in 1.8.x and the 1.9 snapshots), the behavior seems to be that ice will melt with a non-sunlight level of greater than 11, versus the documented 11 or greater. Scudobuio (talk) 14:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Seems the same as always to me in 1.8.8; can you describe what experimental setup you're using? -- Orthotopetalk 06:01, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * A torch on the top surface of a glass block, with a block of ice 4 blocks (taxicab distance) from the torch in every direction, all air blocks in between. In this configuration, each ice block has at least one adjacent air block with a light level of 11. My understanding is that ice should melt under these conditions. Scudobuio (talk) 08:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Since the torch itself is at light level 14, the air above the ice will be at light levels 13-10, so the last block of ice won't melt. -- Orthotopetalk 15:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * But this is the air adjacent to the ice, not above. The block of the torch is at light level 14. Emanating from the torch, three horizontal air blocks at the same layer have light levels of 13, 12, and 11, respectively. A block of ice at the same layer, adjacent to the air block with a light level of 11, should melt as per the description. However, this does not seem to be the behavior for me. I observe ice melting only when the light level adjacent to the ice is 12 or greater. Scudobuio (talk) 17:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The melt pattern in 1.8.8 is the same as it was in 1.3 (shown here), so the actual behavior hasn't changed. However, the description in the article was changed in this edit, which no one seems to have caught at the time. Now fixed; thanks for pointing out the error. -- Orthotopetalk 00:07, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks for the correction! Scudobuio (talk) 08:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

No reference to the ice/soulsand thing?
I do not see any reference to the thing where if you put soul sand on top of ice, you go extremely slow. can somebody add this? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by LuigiSauce (talk • contribs) at 19:50, 03 November 2018 (UTC). Please sign your posts with


 * It is already mentioned on § Usage. It is the part:  --Giorgosarv18 (talk/contribs) 19:56, 3 November 2018 (UTC) (last edited on 19:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC))

Lava pattern larger?
In the Gallery section, it says that the melting pattern of lava is "notably larger" despite it being the same size as the torch pattern --Cryztalzone (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)