Here's a something I wondered last night. I know fish live in water, and they need to eat...but do they drink?

Answer 1

Saltwater fish do - they need to take in the extra water to balance the amount of salt in their bodies. Freshwater fish don't. This is all part of something called osmoregulation (using water and osmosis to regulate the salt concentration). Here's more on this to answer your question: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~delbeek/delb11.html

Answer 2

The answer is yes, but how fish drink water depends on where they live. Saltwater fishes actually drink water !

For freshwater fishes, its a different type of drinking. Water gets into a fish's body through osmosis (for freshwater fishes), the process in which water diffuses from a higher to a lower concentration. For example, if there is more water outside of a cell than inside, water will try to flow into the cell until there is the same concentration of water on either side of the cell's membrane. The body of a fish acts the same way, either absorbing or losing water depending on its surroundings.

Whether a fish absorbs or loses water is based on the fact that all fish must maintain a certain amount of salt in their bodies to stay healthy. Fish that live in fresh water have a higher concentration of salt in their bodies than the surrounding water.

You can visit these interesting links for more details:
http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/main-columns/nature/fishdrinkwater.html
http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/fishdrink.html
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/11721

Answer 3

Fish breath and live in water, I doubt they're ever dehydrated.

Answer 4

yes...even though they live in water at times they need to drink some water...

Answer 5

No they don't they absorb water since they live in it

Answer 6

I imagine they absorb the moisture from the food that they eat