First Outdoor fish

[OldMan47]

I hesitate to call it a pond but I'm setting up my first tank outdoors for the summer. It is a 150 gallon plastic stock tank that is a little over 2 feet deep. What I intend to do is let some molly fry and some endler fry get bigger for a few months until the weather turns foul. At that point I have room in my house for them all and can turn the "pond" upside down for the winter. The weather here gets to 90 or more for the highs and the nights are generally over 70 all summer. It only rains about 15 inches between now and NBovember so I won't be too worried about overflows from rain. I have had it sitting full of water on a concrete pad to leak check it and there is a small amount of water loss in the last week. It is down about an inch and a half and its moist around the drain plug so I will be putting some teflon thread tape on the drain plug.
The real questions I have are about how much light I should allow to strike the tank or do I put it in total shade under a tree? What kind of plants would work? My intention was to move some hornwort outdoors along with some duckweed. I also have some salvinia coming to put on the surface. Can I even think about anything as low light as java moss in there or is it just too much light outdoors? I'm not at all new to fish but have never kept any outdoors.

 

[THE V]

Here's a general conversion from indoor aquariums to outside. Low light = Full shade, Medium Light = Partial Shade, High Light = Full Sun.

Personally I would try to put the tank somewhere there was shade to keep the water temperature more regulated. But if you have a good cover of plants across the surface (like a thick blanket of duckweed etc..) I really doesn't matter where you put it.

 

[finsNfur]

The water in that small a container would get really hot in full sun, but part sun should be fine. Another floating plant that would help provide shade for the fish is water hyacinth. I'd be hesitant to leave it out in full sun even with plants though, especially if it's a really hot day. You might want to test the water temperature to see how hot it gets.

 

[OldMan47]

So far what I have seen is after 5 days of leak testing the water was at 74 F with about 5 hours a day of sun and no plants yet. It cannot stay where I am leak checking it but I could give it the same amount of sun in other places. The spot it was in wasn't very good for long term. I have emptied it today to better seal the bulkhead flange that dripped out about 4 gallons in 5 days and will be putting teflon tape on the drain plug because it may have contributed to the total leakage. It was hard to tell where on the drain the leak was.
From the answers so far, it sounds like an hour or two a day of sun is all that I can afford.

 

[Notophthalmus]

I'd skip the duckweed- it will completely cover the pond surface in a matter of days and crowd out or shade out your other plants, as well as preventing any delicious insects from falling in the water. I think salvinia, hornwort, and java moss will all do fine in medium sun. You may get some green water, but that's all to the good- the green water will support healthy populations of zooplankton for your fry to eat.

Get some bird netting (comes in rolls at any garden supply place) to drape across the pond; otherwise, you might have some problems with herons, raccoons, etc. You can use a few strips of 1X2 laid across the top of the tank to keep the net from drooping into the water.

 

[eroomlorac]

I have two tubs outside. They are quite small, just 20 gallons and 40 gallons. I in the 20 gallon I have hornwort, anacharis, water lettuce,a sideways clay pot, 5 rosy reds, 7 white clouds, common pond snails and ramshorn snails. The tub gets about 6 hours of sun a day and so far it is doing nicely. The 40 gallon tub has Japanese Trapdoor snails, 7 gambusia mosquito fish, common pond snails, water hyacinth, hornwort, frill plants and cambombia (sp?). This tub is just across the driveway from the 20 gallon. The plants have gone CRAZY in these tubs. The gambusia sightings have become rare but I'm sure they are in their doing their fishy jobs of eating mosquito larvae and breeding. I am almost to the point of offering some plants to members here as I need to thin them out. You ought to have a lot of fun with such a large tank. Keep us posted as to it's progress.