Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Those are cool! I would love to build one. I think it would be perfect for a northern aquaponics setup. Especially if you have a hill you are working with. My property does not have any hills and without them it is really hard to figure out how to get the roof pitch right.

One of the keys to this design is to calculate the roof pitch to be as close as possible to 90 degrees with the sun on winter solstice. This guarantees the greatest efficiency when you need it most.

The soil you excavate will easily build you a hill for your northside wall, I think.... But yes, the angle of your southside roof will be quite steep, being in Minnesota.

I had to do this calc while building my passive solar greenhouse and mine needed to be a little more than 50 degrees. Don't get me wrong it could be done a hill would just make it a lot easier.