I just read a news story about a man who noticed one of his prized Japanese carp was having some sort of an attack. When the fish rolled upside-down and became still, the man gave it a heart massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The fish revived and seems OK.
My question is - can a FISH be revived this way? Doesn’t the whole gills and breathing water thing get in the way of an air-breather’s rescue efforts?
The gills don’t work at all well out of water because all the filaments cling together and the surface area available for gas exchange is substantially reduced.
As far as I know, fish don’t have heart attacks either.
I’m voting for ignorance and coincidence here.
Why can’t fish breathe out of water?
But what if you blew fresh water into the fish’s mouth? (ew…) Maybe that would help if the fish was having difficulty “breathing.”
Fish breath by moving water over their gills. The difference in dissolved oxygen is what causes the gas exchange. When out of water the surface area for this exchanged is greatly reduced AND you don’t have water moving over the surface for the gas exchange. This would make it most likely impossible to save a fish with mouth to mouth
Yes you could save a suffocating fish by pumping oxygenated water into it’s mouth (and through the gill filaments). However doing so would only be done under highly unusual circumstances like doing minor surgery on a fish; you can stick a hose into it’s mouth for a few minutes while you’re messing around with something else.
More commonly you could move the fish back and forth in the water to help get water through the gills and revive it like a fisherman would do. Most of the time though you’d just move the fish to another container with good water and leave it be.
Heh, if I had a choice of giving mouth to mouth to some crusty old hobo (or any human) or a fish I’d pick the fish every time - what bad/dangerous could possibly happen (other than saying you kissed a fish)?
:dubious:Hmmm . . . this story is sounding kind of “fishy” to me.
Get it? Fishy? Questionable story about a fish . . .
Sorry:smack::smack::smack: