Like
other sturgeon, juvenile Chinese sturgeon are hyperosmotic
to fresh water and hyposmotic to sea water.
Thus, at the beginning of exposure to a hyperosmotic/
isosmotic environment, the fish would lose water
passively, and thereby undergo increases in the concentrations of serum ions. Afterwards, the compensatory
increase in water ingestion would provide a
transitory dilution of the blood parameters. Finally,
these would return to new steady values as a result of
the rest of the osmoregulatory mechanisms