[bassman]

Have you played around with your picture using Paint or some photo shop to try and give yourself some better ideas of how it will look?

If you have a straight on picture of your wall unit it is very easy to stretch the tank in the image. Might help you envision things.

I personally would make the tank as high as it needs to be to reach the bottom of the last shelf. The door(s) over the tank would be the same height as the last shelf space. Even that isn't going to leave you much room to get your body above the tank to get yours arms inside. With your lights in the way it's going to be even worse.

You may want to consider putting your lights on some kind of track system so you can slide them out into the room, opening up the entire top of your tank for access. Even some heavy duty drawer slides would work. Or if you have room in your ceiling you could have a lift system that would retract the lights up, out of the way.


As far as balancing the tank to the cabinets aesthetically it may be hard to do without making your tank longer as well as taller. I am picturing your tank being about 4' longer and once again up to the last shelf. I think the cabinets are making the tank look small.

Just my 2 cents.