Outside Aquaponics System

[Christopher Brickey]

 So I have been thinking about moving my system outside this summer and I wanted to hear about outside setups from people who have/had them. It might be good to note that I am in North West IN (zone 5b). I have several questions to start out with. First off, I know that I should cover the fish tank with screen or something to keep out unwanted guests, but do the gb's need to be covered? it seems to me that rain coming into the system would not be a bad thing as long as I pay attention to nutrient levels. Second, it has been a concern that the fish tank (50gal) would heat up to quickly, how do I address that (other than the obvious... keeping it in the shade)? Thanks, ahead of time, for everybody's help.

[TCLynx]

Smaller systems will have far more temperature fluctuation if it gets hot during the day or cold at night so a 50 gallon fish tank system may be hard to keep stable if temperatures are not fairly close to good for the fish both day and night.  A cover on the fish tank and having it in the shade is good.  Perhaps some shade cloth for the grow beds if it is an extremely hot sunny summer.  My 300 gallon system I usually put up some 40% aluminet directly over head from about May through Sept so the plants don't have to survive the full noon sun but they cloth is only overhead and not down the sides.

My systems are all out in the open.  Now I am in a rainy state but it seems I don't get nearly enough rain most of the year to make me worry about torrential rains or nutrient dilution.  It might be best to have a roof over the system and be able to collect rain water and use it in a more controlled fashion but I haven't had the budget for such things and I've been doing ok so far.