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One of the things that I did right was to build a system for raising and lowering the lights. It provides a nice solution to being able to move the lights out of the way so that you can work on the tank. By moving them straight up (9' ceiling helps you), they still light up the tank while you are working.

If you slide the lights out of the way to work, then you can't see what you are doing because it is dark. I know that some people mount permanent "work lights" on the ceiling specifically to light the tank when the main lights have been moved out of the way.

I started with a simple rope/pulley idea, which eventually became slightly more complex....(understatement)

Bottom line.....think VERY hard about every maintenance task required. Ask yourself how to design your system to enable those taskes to be done as easily as possible. Water change, glass cleaning, sand cleaning, skimmer cleaning, sump access, pump replacement/cleaning, overflow grate cleaning, light bulb replacement, Water purification...