What would happen to a fresh water fish if it strayed into salt water?
145599
That depends entirely on the fish species and its age and lifestage.\n\nAs others have pointed out many fish like trout or eels will move from fresh water to salt as a normal part of their life cycle. Many other fish trevel between fresh and salt water at will.\n\nHowever if you take a purely freshwater fish, one that has evolved to live exclusively in fresh water, and you drop it into salt water it will  shrivel up and die.\n\nFish don't have waterproof skins. When you place a freshwater fish in salt water osmosis will draw water out of its body far faster than it can be replaced. The fish will become dehydrated and basically die of thirst.
1052272
There is no such thing. Once it apparantly rained fish in Bath or somewhere in England. That's where they get it.
290700
(m)\n\nEveryone who has been to the beach knows that seawater is salty. Everyone also knows that fresh water in rain, rivers, and even ice is not salty. Why are some of Earth’s waters salty and others not? There are two clues that give us the answer. First, “fresh” water is not entirely free of dissolved salt. Even rainwater has traces of substances dissolved in it that were picked up during passage through the atmosphere. Much of this material that “washes out” of the atmosphere today is pollution, but there are also natural substances present.\n\nAs rainwater passes through soil and percolates through rocks, it dissolves some of the minerals, a process called weathering. This is the water we drink, and of course, we cannot taste the salt because its concentration is too low. Eventually, this water with its small load of dissolved minerals or salts reaches a stream and flows into lakes and the ocean. The annual addition of dissolved salts by rivers is only a tiny fraction of the total salt in the ocean. The dissolved salts carried by all the world’s rivers would equal the salt in the ocean in about 200 to 300 million years.\n\nA second clue to how the sea became salty is the presence of salt lakes such as the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. Both are about 10 times saltier than seawater. Why are these lakes salty while most of the world’s lakes are not? Lakes are temporary storage areas for water. Rivers and streams bring water to the lakes, and other rivers carry water out of lakes. Thus, lakes are really only wide depressions in a river channel that have filled with water. Water flows in one end and out the other. \n\nThe Great Salt Lake, Dead Sea, and other salt lakes have no outlets. All the water that flows into these lakes escapes only by evaporation. When water evaporates, the dissolved salts are left behind. So a few lakes are salty because rivers carried salts to the lakes, the water in the lakes evaporated and the salts were left behind. After years and years of river inflow and evaporation, the salt content of the lake water built up to the present levels. The same process made the seas salty. Rivers carry dissolved salts to the ocean. Water evaporates from the oceans to fall again as rain and to feed the rivers, but the salts remain in the ocean. Because of the huge volume of the oceans, hundreds of millions of years of river input were required for the salt content to build to its present level. \n\nRivers are not the only source of dissolved salts. About twenty years ago, features on the crest of oceanic ridges were discovered that modified our view on how the sea became salty. These features, known as hydrothermal vents, represent places on the ocean floor where sea water that has seeped into the rocks of the oceanic crust, has become hotter, and has dissolved some of the minerals from the crust, now flows back into the ocean. With the hot water comes a large complement of dissolved minerals. Estimates of the amount of hydrothermal fluids now flowing from these vents indicate that the entire volume of the oceans could seep through the oceanic crust in about 10 million years. Thus, this process has a very important effect on salinity. The reactions between seawater and oceanic basalt, the rock of ocean crust, are not one-way, however; some of the dissolved salts react with the rock and are removed from the water.\n\nA final process that provides salts to the oceans is submarine volcanism, the eruption of volcanoes under water. This is similar to the previous process in that seawater is reacting with hot rock and dissolving some of the mineral constituents.\n\nWill the oceans continue to become saltier? Not likely. In fact the sea has had about the same salt content for many hundred of millions if not billions of years. The salt content has reached a steady state. Dissolved salts are being removed from seawater to form new minerals at the bottom of the ocean as fast as rivers and hydrothermal proce
518066
Put a fish in the water and see if it dies, if it doesnt then there is oxygen in the water. If it does then shame you have to buy another fish!!!
901405
nothing, the salt water will NOT react with iron, however the rion will just replace a few of the ions of the mineral and still probally nothing will happen
726282
That depends on if you are a fish or a mammal. But mostly, you have to deal with the salt, either by excreting excess, tolerating high amounts and secreting or by maintaining the same concentration of salt inside your body as outside. Moving through the water also presents problems, such as streamlining and propulsion.\nIn marine mammals, their kidneys and urine are adapted to secrete high amounts of salts without loosing excess water, their body shape is made to move through the water easily and there is a seperation of the mouth and nasal cavity so they can eat underwater.
21577
The water is probably ruined.  I would throw it out and get fresh water.
39980
Easiest solution: construct a basin where you place your catch alive, or baskets or nets to keep the fish in captivity.\n\n\nCommon preservation methods for fish include:\n\nsalting - produce an evaporation pan or basin where you can get salt or at least concentrated salt water. Easy if it is hot and sunny. If there is peat exposed to the salt water, you can use the ashes after drying.\n\nsmoking - if you have suitable wood\n\ndrying - in cold climate, you can leave fish with little fat content drying in the air. If you can light a fire, you can dry the fish using heat. The grilled fish will last the longer the less fat it contains.\n\ncuring/fermenting - dig a hole, put your cleaned catch inside with sufficiently salty water (see salting), and wait. Herring will form what the Norwegians call spekesild and the Germans call matjes. If you have access to edible acids (vinegar, citrus), you can try acid curing.
20892
Salt water fishes needs to be in salt water. And fresh water fishes needs to be in fresh water. Salt water fishes can survive in fresh water for short amount of time. It's been known to see sharks in fresh water. I think it helps remove stuff from their skin.
856464
Osmosis would literally suck all the water out of the fish's body therefore dehydrating it.  It would be like taking a saltwater fish and putting it in freshwater or visa versa.  The fish may live briefly before it's metabolic pathways shut down due to lack of water.
1020525
Salinity will decrease a bit, but it won't be very significant.  \n\nLower salinity fish might move out of their environments and colonize other parts of the oceans.
980326
this was answered right here in Yahoo Answrs about 3 months ago:\n\n\n The river water keeps moving .This shows that there is no way of settlement of any minerals-this is the reason why the river wateris not salty.\n\n \nThe salinity of the ocean is caused by high mineral content. When water evaporates it leaves behind all of sediments and becomes pure water. When it falls as rain or snow it remains in this pure state. As it travel through rivers it picks up sediments. Most of the sediments remain in solid form and are pushed along by the river. However, salt dissolves into the water. When the water reaches the ocean, the salt deposit go as well. Over thousands and millions of years, the oceans have developed a high salt content. It's the same reason that lakes that have no outlet, such as the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, become salty. \n\nAs a result of global warming, though, more fresh water is entering the ocean and its salinity levels are dropping. This can have significant environmental effects over time.
1066233
Unless they're rechargable batteries no.  If they are take into account if and what water they were exposed to.  Salt water corrodes things so if it came into contact with it just dispose of the batteries.  Battery acid is no fun and ruins clothes and burns like hell.  If it's fresh you have less chance of corrosion.
113715
No, there will be natural food in the water. No need to feed them anything extra. check out this added info from guys who have kept minnows alive as you want to:\n\nhttp://www.ctfisherman.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/ubb/get_topic/f/27/t/002481.html?
691160
Fresh water creates a hypotonic environment for aquatic organisms. This is problematic for some organisms, whose cell walls will burst if excess water is not excreted. Some protists accomplish this using contractile vacuoles,[2] while freshwater fishes excrete excess water via the kidney.[3] Although most aquatic organisms have a limited ability to regulate their osmotic balance and therefore can only live within a narrow range of salinity, some fishes have the ability to migrate between fresh water and sea water.\n\nAs with many aquatic animals, most fishes release their nitrogenous wastes as ammonia. Some of the wastes diffuse through the gills into the surrounding water. Others are removed by the kidneys, excretory organs that filter wastes from the blood. Kidneys help fishes control the amount of ammonia in their bodies. Saltwater fish tend to lose water because of osmosis. In saltwater fish, the kidneys concentrate wastes and return as much water as possible back to the body. The reverse happens in freshwater fish, they tend to gain water continuously. The kidneys of freshwater fish are specially adapted to pump out large amounts of dilute urine. Some fishes have specially adapted kidneys that change their function, allowing them to move from freshwater to saltwater
587951
depends....if one water is lighter, like salt water is lighter than fresh water, then yes\nif they are the same type of water, then no
965769
I doubt it. Most fish do not protect their eggs at all. Though, some do.  I doubt they bother with eggs of no potential offspring other than being a food source.