| Jason, I have watched Maeda and read about him since about 1995. He was a hobbyist with very big dreams and ambitions many years ago. He obviously is the real Mc KOI ( pun intended!) as he has accomplished more in his relatively short professional career that many in Japan who have been at it for three and four generations! Further, my teacher, Toshio Sakai, has great respect and admiration for Maeda san and therefore so do I.
I have met him many times at the Japanese koi shows and once at his facility and felt the presence and atmosphere of the man. I see Maeda as a koi genius who is also a restless eccentric and great businessman.
His koi are kept in a modified traditional Japanese rearing style. Koi go outside for the growing season and are taken indoors for further grow out in winter. They are large, beautiful and quickly finished indoors. Only 20 koi out of 700,000 are kept to grow on in special growing situations. This is the secret to exceptional koi of jumbo potential. The color quality is excellent as is the skin. The patterns are not the strong point of these fish and leave something to be desired. And they are VERY expensive!
In 1997 Maeda was in pursuit of the one meter gosanke as were many of the top name breeders. He believed then in a natural environment and kept plants and applied many natural techniques to his artifical approach. A sort of melding of two worlds- technology and nature.
SOME SCIENCE-
Fast water and high oxygenation lead to to highly oxidative water. This increases metabolism. Warm water of over 74F maximizes a koi's metabolic rate. Low hormones ( sexual and antigrowth) based on low stocking levels ehnaces growth. And excellent diet allows for maximum growth. Prodvide this to koi culled for jumbo potential and you have a winning formula.
Open the systems up and use the river ground water and you have the final key to the puzzle.
I'm not sure if the bakki shower then, against all of this mentioned, is a major contributor or another personal experiment. One thing is certain, the bakki showers came after all the rest I have posted was accomplished. There was no mention of bakki showers in any Rinko interview with Mr Maeda all through the mid-nineties when his reputation was growing by leaps and bounds.
SOME DISAPPOINTMENTS-
The Brits may remember how a local conman marketed the heck out of the pitted glass filter product in the eighties and early nineties. To the extent that EVERYONE had a bag of the stuff in their last filter bay. It was THE thing to own back then- it claimed to have powers to attract waste and break it down anerobically and aerobically! It was soon coated with biofilm and organics and forgotten about.
SOME CONCLUSIONS-
So I'm sure the bakki showers give good results to Momotaro and better results to typical designed UK systems. But I'm not ready to change anything in my read of things on infrared powers until I get some science. JR |