Layout of fish room... which is best

I have been watching this thread with great interest, not least because I am in the process of trying to organise my downstairs spare bedroom to become my own 'fish room'...

I will ask a couple of what might appear to be ‘leading’ questions - for no other reason than to try to give you the 'benefit' of some of my mistakes so far...

Are the room dimensions you quote exact? I did a wonderful plan of how I intended to make the staging for the tanks, then realised that I had forgotten to allow space for not only the staging uprights but also the small amount of 'allowance' I would need to be able to put in/take out the tanks, should the need arise – not to mention the thickness of the insulation material, in my case I want to use 1” thick polystyrene sheeting (Aeroboard) as I cannot unfortunately afford Platty’s suggested Kingspan, much as I would like to.
Another problem I am wrestling with right now is how to access the electricity sockets, there are two in that room, each will – sadly – end up behind a tank! This can be easily overcome by plugging a short extension lead into each but should the necessity arise to take out the plugs for the leads it will mean having to remove the tank in front of the socket. Sadly I don’t have sufficient width in my room to be able to set the staging far enough from the wall to allow access behind the tanks concerned but even if I had I would really like the staging to be standing against the wall for stability.

So, in a very roundabout way I am attempting to wonder if, in your planning, you have been more practical than I had been?

I can see how each of your designs has it’s own merit and will be most interested to find out which one you finally go for.

From a breeding point of view I would be disinclined to totally block out the window. That so many species fish are stimulated by dawn to trigger off spawning is a fact which ought to be considered by you, for myself the window in my room faces North-West so does not receive any direct sunlight until almost the final part of the day…my shed proves to be quite an effective ‘screen’ earlier on in the late afternoon/evening. Unfortunately artificial lighting cannot successfully re-create that of the dawn, not yet anyway.

Good luck with your project, it would be nice to hear how it goes – blow by blow, so to speak.

John