Aww man, that sucks!! But also a great learning experience and an excellent teachable moment. I really really really dig your set up. I see how water availability and evaporation are big issues, but perhaps you need shadecloth in the meantime? Or is it possible to just fully open the Greenhouse? DIY off the grid is one dilly of a pickle, but it looks like you just had a hiccup and have a bit of fine tuning to do. Would also be curious to know how much power it takes to move that much water and air. Is it on a separate system or micro grid tied to the house too?
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Nope, its a completely separate system. We are going to break that system up and power up a drop freezer at the house. We will still have enough power to keep one grow bed functional. To be honest, we get really amazing growth from the garden that having the aquaponics is kinda redundant. I think the aquaponics grows stuff faster though. Like I said, we will keep one set of grow beds for sprouting plants to be moved into the garden. Works great for cabbage.
Man I wish I had enough power for a deep freeze! I hear you there, the aquaponics is a love/hmmm relationship for me. Not that I've dabbled, but I study it a bit and keep wanting to give it a go, but all the issues you present have me nervous, doubly so if I didn't have grid connections... rainy season and you can barely charge your laptop here! But I don't have power hungry toys anyway so I literally make due with a crummy old 75W panel on loan from a friend. The biggest thing though that really appeals is the water saving, if you fine tune it I guess. But it would be interesting to compare the water efficiency of Aquaponics vs say hugelkultur beds or deep woodchip compost like Jean Pain would do. I hear stories of people getting one rain in the start of summer and it lasting 8 weeks or more! Who knows? maybe the power'll be better used to freeze produce anyway