discuss water balance in a freshwater vs. saltwater fish

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Fresh water fishes are hypertonic to their surrounding environment. ie: the salt concentration inside their body is higher than in the surrounding water. They absorb a controlled amount of water through the mouth and the gill membranes. To compensate, the kidney produces a large amount of urine, which at the same time means loss of salts. In order to maintain a sufficient salt level, special cells in the gills (chloride cells) take up ions from the water, which are then directly transported into the blood .

Marine fishes face the opposite challenge – since the salt content in their blood is much lower than that of seawater, they constantly tend to lose water and build up salt. To replace the water loss, they continually need to drink seawater. Since their small kidney can only excrete relatively small amount of urine, the excretion of salt additionally takes place in the gills where chloride cells work in reverse as in freshwater fishes .

gladiator answered 2 years ago

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