bakki towers

[James P]

Jason, The origin of hikkui is unknown. Many believe it is a virus or a genetic prediapostion to skin cancer infection. Some believe it is an infection based in heterotrophic activity preceeded with erosion of the slime coat due to nitrate levels. All that can be confirmed is that it subsides in mudpond water but returns when the koi is removed to concrete holding ponds.
I do two water changes a week( 15-20%) in my system in high growing season as well as a dump of a 250 gallon sump daily. I use submerged Jmat/matala designs and a separate TT system circuit. I have not had parasites or disease of any kind in my 7500 gallon pond for seven years. It is run as a closed system with no daily dilution factor. The ORP is 330MV at best. I have not registered any ammonia or nitrite readings in ten years.
It is amazing how you missed the point of my post entirely. But that's OK. JR

[dick benbow]

Hi Jim! your statement regarding your 7,000 gal pond and having no parasites for 7 years.... is this an open pond to the elements
or one enclosed in a structure?
thanks

[JasonS]

The point of your post. Hmmm... maybe it was buried in the middle, here:

Quote: 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.

So your point is that you have no idea if the bakki media is the difference or merely a side show. Maeda-san does so many things right that the media might not be at all important. Lava rock, for instance, could be just as good. Or plastic bits, matala, etc.

My point is that he seems to be spending alot of $$ on this side show. It seems to be important to him and has been for years. Looking at Koi-bito #4's cover girl I also think of this crazy media and the open, large systems that Maeda-san promotes. Mr. Mitsuzo Kaneko's pond, if I recall correctly (since I loaned out KB #5), was featured in KB #5 and has a jump filter plus bakki shower. And alot of water change in a greenhouse. I also see a fair amount of bubbles, possibly DOCs, the pond that houses the KB #4 covergirl.

JR, I suspect we're much closer on the 'big picture' here. I am very nervous about this idea of not mechanically cleaning the water. I have also seen media like lava rocks and ceramics trap crud and need lots of cleaning. I can't imagine how this bakki stuff can possibly work. I'm VERY interested in how SMG's experiment with the stuff goes. However, if somebody were to give me a box of the stuff I'd use it. Right away. I'd replace the ceramic media in my cloverleaf with it and watch my Q-tank closely. If that went well for just one summer, I'd find a way to put the full bakki system on my main pond. If it performed roughly the same as the previous material, then I'd move on. And, yes, ORP is one of the things I watch.

I'm willing to try it. Heck, I may even PAY to get some this spring if any of the dealers in N. Cal. are selling it. It seems worthwhile, so why not?

[dick benbow]

Jason,
Do you have earthquakes in your neck of California? We do here in Seattle and I've been contemplating what I can do to secure this structure to something solid. I had planned to set it up over the pond with a straight drop down but now I'm thinking oiff to the side against something i can secure it too and reroute the water out the last
tray to return to the pond. what say yee?

[JasonS]

Fortunately I live in central CA, so the earthquakes aren't much of a worry.

However, I'm thinking a full set would be built as a concrete shelf that empties into the pond. Maybe even with a little greenhouse over the system to heat the water a bit. The fish wouldn't be able to get at the shelves and bang themselves up. Probably run it off the larger Sequence 750 pump.

However, if I could find a strong plastic covering just 8 ft long then I could straddle my pond with it. And then the water could be directed right to the pond without the additional mini-greenhouse structure. Again I'd probably do it as an additional pump rather than tack this to the end of my current system.

Decisions, decisions. BUT FIRST I want a better feeling about this media. Or I could just use other media like matala for a big degassing tower.

[Mike Snaden]

Good morning JR,

Now I am really confused!???... You said your pond "Is a closed ssystem with no daily dilution factor". But, you say that you change 15 to 25% a week (or maybe twice a week?). You then go on to say that in the Summer you dump your settelement (250 gallons per day), which equates to 1750 gallons per week (25% change per week), in addition to your 15 to 20% per week... so a 45% per week water chaange for your pond. So, is your pond a closed system that becomes an 'open' system twice a week, or pond that in Summer is a 'slightly open system', that becomes 'very open' twice a week?

Colin's pond that you saw in the pic above, is having water changes of 37% per week, but has less water changes than your 'closed system' does in the Summer. The only difference is that Colin's water change is a trickle 24hours a day. Just enough to keep TDS levels down, but not too much, as he doesn't want to chill the pond.

At the end of the day, who invented the terms 'closed system', and 'open system'? Since it is impossible to determine how much water constitutes being an 'open system', why don't we just drop this term, as everyone changes water each week whether it's a trickle, or twice weekly dump.

My small pond is a 'very open system'. It contains 4400 gallons, but I change between 5 and 600 gallons per day, to overflow. But the filtration is more than adequate to deal with it's 250 inhabitants, and make them grow greatly. Basically, I am trying to make this pond behave as if it were a much bigger pond. Does this shock you, or does it make sense?

Best regards,

Mike.

[James P]

Morning Jason and Dick,

Dick , the total system is a 7310 ( metered out) and it is located outside. The filters ( towers/Jmat and heaters) are located in a large room along side the pond. I've post picture of the filters many times if you recall, the pond is outside and to the right of those towers. I looked at my records and it was actually nine years ago that I treated for anchor worm. The last shot was given 8 years ago this spring for an emerging ulcer on a showa. I have treated new purchases in the 2200gal indoor Q tank as needed over the years of course. And as you know,NOTHING gets into the outdoor pond without living at least three months indoors.
Jason, you are more on track than I gave you credit for. Maeda is a very successful koi breeder and has already made his fortune in life with other businesses. His better young koi sell for $10,000 and up and he sells LOTS of them to Chinese collectors. So everything he does is on a grand scale. The expenditure of $$ for the media is a drop in the bucket. He plans on buying even more land and converting the rice fields behind him into even more outdoor mudponds. Like many geniuses he has a restless heart and huge ambitions. And like many successful people he marches to the beat of his own drum.
As for his filters, they are being taken out of context and that worries me. I am concerned about the science as it is being presented. And I am concerned about the application of the system in the west. And I fear the 'train wrecks' in this broader arena of inexperienced hobbyists. In real life we have chlorine/chloramines and heavy metals to deal with. We have winter to deal with. We have spring start up issues to deal with.
As that great song says ' money for noth'in and chicks for free!'--------- magic bullets rarely work.
How's this for a compromise- if you run continuous fresh water in a pond and use any test, nitrate, TDS , ORP ect to monitor the the short comings of a system you should have a good outcome. Or- if you replace metabolites building in a system with a 10% dilution factor on a continous basis your koi will benefit. Telling me that infared powers of ceramic media is responsible for this outcome however is kinda like what magician's do when they have you look at their right hand while the cards disappear in the left- it's called misdirection.
So here's the challenge! All those using bakki towers exclusively- turn off the fresh water supply and feed your koi as usual. Do a 20 % water change once a month as most hobbyists do when maintaining a closed system. In theory, the media will be free to use its infrared powers to make all organics and inoragnics go away without the distraction of dilution factors. On day twenty nine , before the first water change, test nitrate levels, ORP, TDS and pH. Do the water change and check these levels IMMEDIATELY and then again in twenty nine more days. Kept a chart and a graph of each value. In effect what is happening here is that traditionally, waste is removed at vortex. In the bakki TOTAL approach, waste is degassed and dissolved and water changes dilute the organic levels across the board. But dilution would do the same for the traditional system. The only remaining difference then would be that bakki showers will deliver additional benefits that all wet/dry and TT systems deliver and submerged systems do not. That is in the area of gas exchange.

Meanwhile, I'll remind you of the two greatest misdirections I ever saw in the fish hobby.
The first was a 400 gallon aquarium that was loaded, I mean loaded, with marine tropicals. It defied anything I had ever seen or learned about marine systems. The owner then took me to the filtration system in his garage. The garage had a two thousand gallon filter tank and reservoir. The fish were actually in a 2400 gallon system but isolated to the 400 gallon portion!
The second great illusion was a 4000 gallon koi pond only 30 inches deep. It had twenty HUGE healthy koi swimming in it. The water was crystal clear and the koi were perfect! The pond was filtered by one drain and that fed a 16 ft X 4X 4 ft concrete upflow filter filled with gravel! An old style japanese latern filter circulated water through a few Jmat pads and threw the returning water down onto the water surface in a splashing motion. I was stunned and amazed. The owner then showed me the constant fed from his artisian well. A constant flow of 30 gallons per hour of fresh 75 F water fed the system 24X7 - 365 days a year. An excellent illusion of a closed system but it was not a closed system. Heck, the guy didn't even need a filter! No hormonal feedback, no nitrates, no mineralization- just the illusion of deteriorating water! He fed hikari high growth pellets and fresh foods exclusively by the way. The year was 1991. JR

[Mike Snaden]

I must confess JR, that I don't know a single Koi keeper that does maintenance once a month, so your proposed test is unrealistic at the very least. 90% of Koi keepers that I know (or sell Koi to) flush their votexes and drains twice a week. Even when I flush my 8000 gallon pond's drains, I lose about 400 gallons, and I do this twice a week in Winter, or every other day during Summer if I see fit.
As far as ORP goes, I think it is far better to track TDS, as the readings are in my opinion more usefull. Lets face it, you can leave a pond running for a month, until ORP drops very low. Then, add a little potassium, and bump the ORP back up. But, does that mean that the water is instantly much better and fresher?... no. Furthermore, you could run down this track for a few years, and one day test TDS levels, only to find that although the ORP is great, the TDS is off the scale. But, run your pond using a TDS meter as your guide, and you will most likely find that your ORP levels stay pretty high anyway.

Mike.

[James P]

OK Mike, if that one scares you too much then how about 5% twice a week. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Hows that sound?
What is your definition of Total Dissolved solids? JR

[Mike Snaden]

Hi again,

5% twice weekly would maintain a pond like my 8000 one ok. But, the TDS of this pond is about 200ppm, which is too high to grow Koi properly. It's enough to feed them enough to keep them in good shape, but that's all. This is with conventional filtration. If I wanted to use this pond for growing Koi big, then I would want to get the TDS down to a maximum of 100ppm. So, even with conventional filtration, 5% wouldn't be enough for my liking.

TDS... anything that gets dissolved into the water... minerals, uneaten food, fish waste, additives, and basically anything organic.

Mike.