[tewa]

Hi Steve

You are quite right this thread is not just about correlating fish growth to bakki showers, what is more important is about producing and maintaining good water quality for the fish to grow. This can be done using other filtraton setups, altering stocking density, volume of pond, providing good diet and most of all genetics.

For eg Mike T said his friend did it without a bakki in sight fair enough.

In this thread I shared what my pond setup was and how the fish developed over the season, I am not saying it cant be done with other systems or media. I also shared what another koi keeper in Australia who previously had a 20 ton pond with multi chambers had experience with bakki showers in a 1000L pond and a 10000L pond. Similar setups to my 6000L pond with heavy stocking like mine.

You are also probably aware that import of koi is ban in Australia, and it is with no joke that I comment that the genetics of koi in Australia are at the level they were at in japan some 35 to 45 years ago. Gosanke jumbos here are only in the 60's this will take a good 4 to 6 years to achieve. By the time they are in the 70s 9 out of ten of them have disfigured bodies or the skin quality has gone down the hill. The genetics of the koi are way behind compared to even the low to medium priced koi you get from japan. We have no large mud ponds here, the water is not as soft here and we have no heated facilities none at all. How fast koi will advance in Australia will never be as fast as how it did in japan 35 years ago, we just dont have as many breeders that have the facilities to do so.

End of the day what i am saying its not that easy to grow koi fast here in Australia and 9 out of ten koi that can grow fast will experience a loss in colour as the hi plate does not stretch as fast but that is not he fault of the system its the genentics. I am sure these growth rates exist here in Australia in other 6000 to 7000L ponds, I am just sharing how i did it in my pond.


TEWA