Growing koi with Bakki Showers

[tewa]

Quote: Originally Posted by junglegeorge12 Nice toes, they are showing up now, nice and very good growth rates. Those do not look like they r all australian bred....

Hey JG

I am a bit embarrassed about the toes they do come up every now and than, they have all been bred in Australia (as we all know importing koi is bad )

tewa

[tewa]

Quote: Originally Posted by junglegeorge12 I was surfing the net and ran across some anrgy old blowhard who says that the bakki has nothing to do with final growth size, but we all know stunted koi do not usualy fully recover, so that cannot be 'all' true. His comments leaned towards they would evnetualy reach the same size anyway, but if that is so then why does Momotaro and others using showers have so many GC wins? Seems kind of opposite to say 'it is all preprogrammed by dna' then to say 'if the growth is stunted it will not fully recover in most cases'. Just some food for thought.

Hey JG

I guess you will always find a few around that think bakki showers and bacteria house are just a load of crap, I realise you just cant win them all over. They just gotto try it. I have another friend using Bakki showers in a 10 ton pond heavily overstocked he managed to get many 16 month kohaku in the 45 to over 50cm range. And actually 80% of the growth was in a 1 ton pond with 11 fish in it. When they left the one ton pond they were all about 35 to 40cm I believe. These koi were 15 to 20cm to start with and reached 35 to 40cm in 5 months of growth. I will post pics of these later when I get them.

tewa

[PapaBear]

Quote: Originally Posted by RogerMoo Hong, What are you talking? 16 months to grow to 45cm-50cm? That's a bit to long with bacteria house and bakki showers! Give me 6 months will do! Tosai from 20+cm reach almost 50cm within 6-8 months with bacteria house and bakki showers!

If I had a growing season like yours, (lets see... that would be 365 days per year ) I could put on massive growth too
I really don't see how BH can be credited with the growth though. (not trying to start a fight, just shooting straight). I like everything I read about BH (except the price tag ). I just think any system that maintains healthy water can promote growth equally well when coupled with the proper feeding regime.

[junglegeorge12]

Roger he meant 16 month old kohaku already at 50 cm.

I have 3 koi that are 14-15 months old now that are 20". The amazing thing to me is how awesome the colors and beni are. Some kept suggesting growth that fast would weaken beni, not so in my case. Not one of them looks 'stretched', in fact the oldeer they get the deeper and richer the color is getting, from orange to red.

They look great, and feed like hogs. Only one of them has a scar on one patch of beni from sticking his head in a pipe.

[aquitori]

Pretty good growth. Were these fish fed on Momotaro koi food too?

[Mike T]

Larry:

I agree with you, for the record I have Bakki's on our ponds with moderate growth 365 days/year...

Just visited a friend's house yesterday and was amazed at the growth he's gotten in the last 2-3 years... His pond is murky, his fish load is over the top and he hasn't cleaned his DIY filters in 2 years, and IMHO he probably overfeeds his koi as well (says it takes 20 minutes for the koi to finish each meal 2-3 times a day) yet his koi are in the 25-30" range with huge gerths... And not a bakki in sight...

Not saying that this is or is not a healthy situation, just that he's getting great growth without a bakki... My friend claims that bloodlines are a major factor in the growth patterns.

Aloha! Mike

[junglegeorge12]

LOL, NONE of us LIKES the pricetag larry, but if u knew about the cost of producing ceramics of that type, they are charging very little. I know Alphapiezo charges about $100-300 for enuf dielectric ceramics to make up about 1/10 of one piece of BH. A kiln that fires that hot costs to build and costs even more to heat.

As far as growth rates- I had other koi in the exact same pond there for a year, they grew from 6" to 12". Same food, not Momotaro, still working on getting that over here.

I personally think it is due in part to the oxygenation of the shower, and in part to water quality, and also in part to what Daisuke said about the change in actual taste and smell in the water, all affecting their hunger eating habits. Not only do they devour the food quickly but they graze passionately most of the time. Makes them more enjoyable to view cuz they r always out and about hunting food instead of hiding under the waterfall.

[JamesPR]

Amen, any TT or wet/dry ( which is what BH in trays is) will contribute three very important and often over looked things to a closed pond system:

1 ) it will increase oxygen levels so that the fish's metabolic performance is not hindered in any way ( aerobic metabolic activities and protein synthesis).

2) it will produce an overall larger water/atmosphere interface which will allow for metabolic waste gases to leave the system.

3) it will produce an efficient biofilm/nitrification ( again efficient metabolic rates just like within the koi themselves) without the usual limitations of submerged media.

If you then oversize the filters you are also expanding the overall water volume within the system. If a large % of the water at any one time is in circulation within the towers or trays, all the better.
( Notice I didn't take a shot at the magical rays! I'm maturing! )

The kinder and gentlier JR

[bekko]

This thread is absurd, tewa. If you want to show us photos of your fishies, fine, we're used to that. If you want to discuss BH and TT's, fine, we're used to that. But, it is incongruous to try to correlate fish growth to BH using one data point under nebulous conditions.

The meaner and grouchier,
-stevehopk

[KoiCop]

even better, how about buying a banner ad to flog your merchandise.