bakki towers

[James P]

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

[shiromujigirl]

Just a question Mike: how much water in all those Bakki only systems in England is over flowed per 24 hours, i.e, how open?

[James P]

So clearly mike , you're telling me that the speed of water turnover and the media used has accounted for this difference in outcome. And secondly, that we do not need to remove waste from koi ponds any more. And that this is a perpetual situation with only a simple water change performed ( how often?) . Do I have this all right? I mean this is your position on this media and this maintenance approach? JR

[Mike Snaden]

JR... interesting points, and fair.

Shiromuji... now you've opened up another can of worms! ;-)
OK... the objective here, is to change enough water to maintain a reasonable TDS differential between the pond water, and mains water. So, if your pond is more heavily stocked, then more water will be needed to keep the TDS in check. Otherwise, the TDS will just climb and climb forever, and growth will slowly grind to a virtual halt.

So, I would say that Ian changes (to overflow), about 500 gallons a day in order to maintain a TDS of 80ppm. Colin changes probably about 400 to maintain a sub 80ppm TDS. This is a constant trickle to overflow. Jon Mak is low stocked, so in his 5500 gallon pond, changes less than 100 gallons per day. James Carter is also low stocked (10,000 gallons), and changes a negligable amount of water.

The TDS meter is basically used as a 'water condition' meter. It is impossible to quantify how much should be changed on a pond, without one of these meters.

Hope this helps?

Mike.

[James P]

wow! What have I missed here? I thought you said they were all closed systems? JR

[Mike Snaden]

Hi again JR,

Not sure what you mean by the first part of your question? But, in answer to the second... Without water changes, a showered pond's water will slowly deteriorate in it's suitability for keeping Koi healthy and growing. So, at the very least, you need to trickle water in (to overflow), so that water changes would in effect be equivalent to those carried out in a normal pond. But, the TDS meter is the tool for measuring whether these changes are enough, or more than needed.

Time for beddiebyes now. See you later...

Goodnight,

Mike.

[Mike Snaden]

Hi one last time for tonight...

You mean to tell me that you never dump any water from your pond!??? ;-)

Best regards,

Mike. (hang on a minute! ;-))

Right... here is a pic of Colin's 7500 gallon pond. As you can see, it is very heavily stocked! Most of these Koi have been grown from Tosai, and are now Nisai, and Sansai, with some being well over 60cm. In order to grow such Koi to over 80cm, the TDS has to be kept nice and low... which means larger water changes. Keeping Koi alive can be done with very small changes. But, making them thrive, often requires more.

[James P]

OK Mike I'll let you get some rest, its late over there. We can pick it up tomorrow. But I gotta tell ya, this is not running a closed system. This is an open/semi open system and any of the old systems would have been improved with this approach. I see no majic from infared here? JR

[dick benbow]

Mike S,
thanks for your extensive post. I'm beginning to appreciate that the proof really is in the Pudding! (LOL)
I'm ready to rock and roll as soon as our dealer gets the media in and I can get it shipped out to the west coast.
thanks again!

[JasonS]

JR, I'm perplexed by your comments regarding Maeda-san. You go to great lengths to mention how he has impressed you with his koi keeping prowess and how he was employing fairly normal methods in the nineties. But after doing so you seem to discount his current methods as some technological dead end or wrong turn. Perhaps what he is doing now isn't helping as much as we'd like to think, but it certainly doesn't seem to be hurting. And he is going to considerable expense to do follow this path. Plus, how do you explain Mike's report regarding Hikui in Maeda's non-Bakki system?

Regarding the science behind it: nice to know but I'm OK with something just working. Once we know the science we can make the stuff cheaper, right?! Or at least know WHY it is so expensive. Mike has provided many examples of how the stuff was developed and the research that went into it. This doesn't appear to be so kind of magic dirt or snake oil, especially since the guy selling it is a well respected breeder and really does seem to be putting his money where his mouth is.

Regarding 'open' system. The water changes reported here seem to be a max of 10% per day. Well short of the 100% per day I've seen reported of Maeda's ponds. Surely 10% a day is not too unusual. How much do you change in your ponds during the season?