How to drain ocean monuments with commands in Minecraft?

Water can be a difficult facet to build in Minecraft. Anyone who's built an underwater base has experienced the struggle. That said, there are a lot of factors that make it difficult, but one is simply related to its ubiquitous presence. It takes up open space, which further complicates the process of building a base.

There are ways to remove water, though. If it's in a confined area, placing a block down and then breaking it will remove the water in that space. Notably, sponges are also a useful tool for this.

Ocean monuments are rather large, though, so removing water from them with either of those two methods is incredibly challenging. Fortunately, there's a command for it.

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Minecraft: Draining an ocean monument with ease

Commands are one of the most helpful features in the game, but they do disable achievements. Still, they can be used to teleport anywhere, find any structure and more.

The fill command is quite useful in removing water. With its syntax being /fill, it is one of the most valuable commands in the game as it can remove anything in mass at a moment's notice.

• To start, you will need two sets of coordinates that include all three (x, y and z coordinates). One coordinate set will be from one corner of the area you want to drain.
• The second is from the opposite corner, so you will need to travel diagonally to the opposite corner and note those coordinates as well.

The full command is a little bit different for other editions, though. Here's how each one works.

Ocean Monuments are filled with water (Image via Minecraft/Mojang)

Java Edition

For the purposes of this example, the coordinate sets will be 35, 44, 398 and 21, 55, 415.

The command in Java Edition will be "/fill <35> <44> <398> <21> <55> <415> air replace water." Simply enter that into the chat and you should see the water removed from the coordinates. Air is an empty block, so anything can be placed there afterwards.

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Bedrock Edition

In Bedrock Edition, there is a slight difference in key and syntax. Using the aforementioned co-ordinates, here's an example.

For Bedrock Edition, type "/fill <35, 44, 398> <21, 55, 415> air 0 replace water". The zero in the last section of the command is paramount.

This method may require a bit of trial and error to find the exact right area to remove water from, especially in a non-square structure like an Ocean Monument.

Fortunately, if anything goes wrong, then the same Minecraft command can be used again. This time, replace the air with water and it should refill the area.

It is recommended to do this before anything else since mining is more difficult underwater, along with breathing.

The Elder Guardian should also be defeated first or otherwise have the game mode set to peaceful. Mining fatigue makes almost anything impossible at the Minecraft Ocean Monument.

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