How did the fish live through the flood?

Question

If the waters were boiling as the flood continued, how did the fish survive throughout the Mabul?

Not to mention that without a miracle happening, mixing freshwater and seawater would have been deadly to every single species except maybe salmon, and freshwater fish would have had a hard time knowing what were the freshwater lakes to swim over as the flood waters receded.

HodofHod · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-16 05:15:46Z

A couple of possibilities:

I recall hearing once that it was a miracle (neis), but cannot remember where or from whom I heard/saw it.
I similarly recall that the waters around the Teivah were not boiling (source and reason), so it is quite possible the fish hung around there.
The waters were only boiling on the surface and not in the depths of the sea (no source, but conjectured here [question #402]).
According to one medrash, the Atlantic ocean did not boil and all the fish went there (see ibid.) [I think this is somewhat problematic for explaining fresh water fish, though]

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