>...I will also postulate based on experience that if the fish were to die, it would be more likely to be less dense than water, and reduce the weight of the bucket/water/fish system as compared to the bucket/water system. I do welcome further discussion, however-- I find this subject very interesting! (You may have guessed that by the fact that I have replied more than once and my replies have been, for me, rather long...)
>
> Don

Hold on...even if a dead fish has less mass then water, would it not still have mass? And, as long as it has some mass, then that mass would be added to the bucket/water system, thus making the entire system weigh more with the dead fish then without the dead fish -- assuming, of course, that the water in the buckets is equal and not a fish-volume worth of liquid was removed from the bucket with the fish in it. I think that the only way the the bucket would be made lighter by something in it would be if the thing has less density the *air*, not water. As long as the object, if dropped, will fall down to the ground, then it must have weight, and therefore if the object was dumped into a bucket that bucket would weigh more.

-Ka"Now, where can I find some Hydrogen and a dead fish to test out my hypothesis?"z!